IPBL: Al-Sudani support for CBI measures enabled the economy recovery

INA - LIVE UPDATES - BAGHDAD

The Iraqi Private Banks League - IPBL confirmed on Monday, that Prime Minister Muhammed S. Al-Sudani’s support for the procedures of the Central Bank of Iraq - CBI enabled the economy to advance.

“The government implemented, since assuming responsibility, procedures that have developed a detailed road map to address the loss of methodology, the previous dispersion in financial policies, the chaos in managing the economy, and the imbalance that occurred as a result of the lack of coordination between the two financial policies," said the advisor to IPBL, Samir Al-Nusairi, to the Iraqi News Agency - INA.

He added, "These steps resulted in the issuance of joint reform decisions to enable the economy to advance to good growth rates confirmed by international organizations, especially the reports of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They acknowledged that the Iraqi economy in 2023 left fragility to a gradual recovery and achieved an inflation rate at an annual rate of 3.7%, which is lower compared to 7%, in January 2023."

"This rate is the lowest compared to inflation rates in Arab and regional countries for the same period, this is one of the goals of monetary policy by reducing inflation and maintaining the general level of prices despite the fluctuation in the exchange rate, in addition to the expectation of achieving growth in output of non-oil GDP by 5%," he included.

Al-Nusairi stressed, "The procedures also included organizing the financing of foreign trade and moving banks to build trust relations with global correspondent banks as well as obtaining their approval to open accounts for our banks with them and allowing commercial and banking dealings with them directly in addition to gradually leaving the electronic platform and introducing new foreign currencies into dealing for foreign trade purposes with China, UAE, Turkey and India, in addition to the US dollar, which will help stabilize the exchange rate in the trading market.”

"The measures were also supported by the serious approach of the government and the Central Bank to move and transform from the cash economy to the digital economy and focus on developing electronic payment systems and securing the infrastructure for that, establishing a national company for payment systems, reconsidering the structure of banking financing, and preparing to launch the national lending strategy and establishing Riyada Bank to finance small and medium enterprises and to reconsider the structural, regulatory and supervisory structure of the bank’s specialized departments," explained Al-Nusairi.

He added, "The important and basic priority that the Central Bank is working on includes preparing to launch the financial inclusion strategy, as the number of accounts opened in banks has grown by 14%, to reach more than 10 million accounts, while the number of credit cards issued has reached more than 18 million cards."