PM's Adviser: India and China constitute the center of gravity in the movement of the Iraqi trade balance

Baghdad-INA 

The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mudhar Muhammad Salih, today, Saturday, identified two factors that play their role in ensuring the sustainability of the demand for Iraqi oil for the coming years, and while he confirmed that India and China constitute the center of gravity in the movement of the Iraqi trade balance, he indicated that the oil resource It constitutes the revenue base of the tripartite budget by 90%.

Salih told the Iraqi News Agency (INA): "There are two factors that play their role in ensuring the sustainability of the demand for Iraqi crude oil for the coming years, and that global crude oil price rates during the current and next years will not be less than an average of $77 a barrel, and for two central reasons surrounding the global economy." ".
He added, "The first reason is that India and China are still reaping the highest economic growth rates in the world, and they are on their way to leading the global economy in a sustainable manner in the next two decades without a doubt, which increases their demand for crude oil to sustain the wheels of industrial production in them strongly, and that Their demand for the oil of the West Asian markets, which is the closest and truly abundant, will continue because of the large reserves that are close to half of the world’s oil reserves and the abundance of production, and thus the two countries (India and China) will constitute the safety valve in stopping the advance of the global inflationary depression that is expanding through the symbolic markets of the Western industrial world today. 

He pointed out, "There is a positive relationship between the high rates of economic growth and the high demand for energy resources, specifically crude oil, as the Indian and Chinese markets constitute the main import center for the oils of the Gulf region within the growing economies of Asia on the one hand, and the oil of Iraq in particular on the other hand. India and China are the two largest customers in importing Iraqi oil, and they constitute the center of gravity in the current Iraqi trade balance movements.

He continued, "As for the second and important reason or factor in the conditions of the global energy market, it is represented by the continuation of the war in Ukraine on the one hand, and the world's high needs for crude oil on the other hand, and oil prices will not fall below an annual rate that, in our estimate for the current and next years, is not less than $77 a barrel." On average, as we mentioned, that is as long as the Ukrainian-Russian war continues and affects Russia's energy supplies.

And he added, "Especially since the Russian Federation, in which oil and gas production constitutes the second position in the world, is in a difficult position in marketing energy products and exporting them globally at equilibrium prices, which means that the Ukrainian war and Russia's blockade of Western countries is still blocking the flow of oil and gas resources on a regular basis." From those countries to the markets of the West, in order to meet the increasing demand for energy resources, which made reliance on alternative energy production centers, but at a high cost, specifically the American oil market, meaning that the lack of Russian oil and gas has raised the cost of producing alternatives in the world and set minimum costs that will make prices Oil fluctuates between 77-87 dollars per barrel as long as the war is raging in Ukraine until now.”