PM Advisor: Domestic product growth will last until 2023

INA – BAGHDAD
 
The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mudhher Muhammad Salih, revealed on Wednesday, the size of the gross domestic product for the next year, specifying the factors for the rise of the domestic product for the current year.
 
“World Bank report showed that the growth in Iraq domestic product in 2022, which is the highest among the Middle Eastern group in general and the group of developing oil countries in particular, as it is estimated at (+ 8.9%) annually, a rate that exceeds even that approved by the current national development plan, which is about more than (+ 7%) annually,” said Salih in a statement to the Iraqi News Agency – INA.
 
He explained that “the high growth figure indicates positive implications for achieving a large expected production accumulation during 2022, especially in the agriculture and oil sectors, which are the two leading sectors in contributing to this significant increase in domestic product,"
 
"Iraq's return to operating its full oil potential and supplying the energy market with current urgent needs is one of the reasons behind this high growth, especially since Iraq has a current oil reserve production capacity of more than one million barrels," he noted.
 
The current agricultural season, especially in the oil sector cereal production indicates positive data that is better than the indicators of the year 2021, which is the year that achieved an annual growth in domestic product that reached (+ 1.4%), after the recovery of growth levels against what the year 2020 witnessed of a serious decline in economic growth, which amounted to (+ 8.6%), according to Salih statement.
 
He pointed out that "the strength of financial leverage at the state and market levels is at its best time, which will help contain unemployment, maximize employment and reduce the area of destitution, especially when it is supported by the legislation of the emergency law for food security and development," adding, "We do not expect that the cycle of oil assets will turn against Iraq's oil interests in the coming term, where a sudden drop in the country's oil revenues has been achieved, especially during the next few years, which means that the possibility of sustainable growth will continue when the surplus financial resources are reinvested in work-generating and income-generating projects and away from the manifestations of consumer waste and according to sustainable development adopted by the current national development plan for the country,”.
 
He stressed that "what the World Bank report expects above is that the growth rate in the gross domestic product will continue to be positive in 2023, but at rates that will reach less than 5%, due to the impossibility of doubling oil production in the form of immediate short-term investments," noting that "any growth rate in the gross domestic product that exceeds the growth rate of Iraq's population, which is about 2.6% per year, will contribute to economic prosperity and improve the per capital share of that output,”.