PM advisor: Remaining foreign debts on Iraq

INA - BAGHDAD 

The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mudhir Muhammad Salih, revealed the volume of Iraq's remaining foreign debt, while stressing that it has decreased significantly.

"Iraq's foreign debts have decreased significantly, and only less than $6 billion of the actual sovereign debt under the Paris Club Agreement (debts before 1990) remains," said Salih in a statement to the Iraqi News Agency (INA). 

“Payment methods include installment payment with interest until maturity at the end of 2028, accompanied by commercial debts that were scheduled after 80% were discounted in 2006 and the remaining amount is $2.7 billion,”

He explained that “the remaining amount has been scheduled and issued in a European bond to creditors since 2006 and was called (Iraq 2028), and it carries an annual interest of about 5.8 percent, as the bond will be ended," 

“The European bond (Iraq 2028) is traded in the secondary capital markets where it is universally desirable in buying and selling as a result of its high guarantees,” he noted.


He pointed out that "the foreign debt does not exceed $13 billion, which increased during financing of the war against the terrorist gangs of Daesh after 2015, and there is a gradual payment mechanism for it, as allocations to extinguish it have been made within the annual general budget," stressing "the allocation of more than 9 trillion dinars in 2021 budget to extinguish debt services, and this will be the case in 2022 budget,” 

"Debts that have not been settled so far, date back to the era of the previous regime, and they must be settled under the Paris Club Agreement, as these debts belong to the four Gulf countries and 8 other foreign countries, as they are unclaimed pending due to their connection with the financing of the Iraq-Iran war in Iraq, back to 80s, amounting to about $41 billion,” Salih explained.

He went on saying that, “there are internal debts, estimated at about $50 billion, which are liabilities within the institutions of the government system, and all of them are between public finance, the central bank and government banks, that is, they are not obligations on individuals but rather within the government financial entity," pointing to "preparing steps to end it without affecting the integrity of serving economic development or affecting the country’s financial sustainability,”