MOF: The international community supports Iraq by implementing the white paper

Minister of Finance, Ali Abdul-Amir Allawi, confirmed today, Thursday, Iraq's aspiration for a supportive international role in the implementation of programs, including the White Paper, and while stressing that the country is not in dire need of financial support at the present time, he announced the government's aspiration to expand cooperation The tripartite with Egypt and Jordan for the stage of the common market and other programs.

Allawi said in his speech on the sidelines of the spring meetings of the Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, which was attended by the correspondent of the Iraqi News Agency (INA), that "the main purpose of his visit to Washington and participation in meetings with an integrated team of the Ministry of Finance and major banks is to strengthen and deepen our relationship with international agencies. ".

He added, "The team is in talks with the US Treasury, as there are some important and outstanding issues that are not related to US financial support, because fortunately we do not urgently need financial support now, but we need more technical assistance and moral support for our reform program, which has been completed." Include it in what we call the white paper.”

He added, "I do not expect to conclude any major economic agreements with the United States, because we have the Strategic Framework Agreement and we are satisfied with it and we welcome the continuation of American support for the economic development of Iraq, but the focus now is more on what we can call programs and plans instead of money."

He continued, "What we need, is a revolution in our financial management, in our understanding of the strategic issues, and the economic issues facing the country," adding, "We have missed many opportunities that would have pulled the country out of its poor economic performance and Iraq probably missed the equivalent of 50 years of progress".

On the white paper, Allawi stressed that "the year 2020 represented the most difficult economic period that we have gone through, and since 2003 we have gone through a moribund period that enabled us to see the future in which oil prices will collapse and global demand will decline, so the year 2020 was a glimpse of what could happen, and it was a very dangerous moment, And one of the factors that led us to look at the structural issues affecting the Iraqi economy.”