Al-Jabouri: the increase of oil prices did not address the budget deficit

Baghdad-INA

The Parliamentary Finance Committee confirmed on Saturday that the increase in oil prices did not address the budget deficit.

The head of the parliamentary Finance Committee, Member of Parliament Haitham al-Jabouri, stated to the Iraqi News Agency (INA) : So far, according to the new oil prices, the financial deficit in the budget has not been addressed, despite the fact that oil reached 75 US dollar, but Iraqi oil is lower than international prices, with the exception of Basra Light oil, in addition to cost of oil production.

al-Jubouri pointed out that the price of oil barrel after extracting became 60 dollars and after multiply it with the production of 2 million 880 thousand in 365 days and multiply it with the exchange rate, we find that it did not fill the deficit in the budget, noting that "the budget is 130 trillion and at current prices we still have a real shortfall in investment and operational expenditures amounting to 30 trillion.

al-Jubouri expressed his surprised by some circulated talk over the existence of financial abundance, adding that all the abundance that is achieved goes to fill the financial deficit in the budget, and therefore we still need to return the million barrels that were deducted from the quantities that Iraq is supposed to produce according to the OPEC agreement so that we can completely fill the real deficit to spend the budget, but in the current situation the deficit is still exist.