Parliamentary Finance Committee: new measures to control exchange rate

INA-  Baghdad

The Parliamentary Finance Committee revealed Thursday new procedures for the Central Bank of Iraq to control exchange rate fluctuations, while it put forward a set of recommendations to control them.

A member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Mustafa Al-Karawi, told the Iraqi News Agency (INA), that "the central bank must meet the requirements of the US Federal Bank to prevent or reduce pressure on the bills sent to it, to reduce the scarcity of hard currency in the country."

He stressed, "the need to find real solutions to the mechanism for granting banking licenses, and to give confidence to merchants that they deal directly with the Central Bank without mediation, in order to control the economic conditions and the movement of the dollar within the country."

Al-Karawi called on the government to "work to resolve the file of fluctuating exchange rates in the markets, and to remove the Federal Bank from controlling the Iraqi economy," explaining that "the previous Iraqi governments did not develop a government strategy and program to manage the file of the exchange rate and the outlet for selling the currency."

He pointed out, "The Finance Committee met with the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, and the proposals that will be put forward to reduce economic pressure on the citizen were heard," pointing out that "the bank will issue, during the next two days, new instructions with the aim of finding quick solutions for the citizen by increasing the number of outlets, and facilitating procedures for granting banking licenses, opening direct agencies for merchants who import materials from abroad, and controlling border ports to know the true volume of the country's imports.

He continued, "These measures must be taken quickly at the internal level, while the external level will become clear after the visit of the Iraqi delegation to negotiate with the American side on the 10th of this February."