Confirming that the oil contribution to the budget remains roughly 89%, the Ministry of Finance disclosed on Tuesday the size of Iraqi revenues in the federal budget for 7 months exceeded 77 trillion dinars.
Reaching 89%, which indicates that the rentier economy forms the foundation for Iraq’s overall budget, Shafaq News Agency followed the data and tables published by the Ministry of Finance last August for the accounts of January, February, March, April, May, June and July for the current fiscal year, showing that oil is still the main resource for Iraq.
The financial tables showed that the entire income for seven months of the current year amounted to 77 trillion, 475 billion, 502 million, 239 thousand, and 546 dinars, so indicating the total advances amounted to 15 trillion, 664 billion, 477 million, 820 thousand, and 559 dinars.
The financial tables show that non-oil revenues amounted to 8 trillion, 317 billion, 883 million, and 512 thousand dinars, while oil revenues amounted to 69 trillion, 55 billion, 827 million, and 984 thousand dinars, thereby making 89% of the total budget.
“The economic problem in Iraq is due of the failure of the regimes that ruled Iraq to achieve the mission of moving towards a developmental economy by investing the oil wealth in diversifying the economy, creating productive employment opportunities, raising the level of human development, and riding it of rentierism,” economic expert Mohammed Al-Hasani said in an interview with Shafaq News Agency.
Al-Hasani underlined the need of “activating a set of laws that encourage the local and foreign private sector to enter the Iraqi market, including custom tariff laws, consumer protection, anti-monopoly laws, and others.”
Mazhar Muhammad Salih, the adviser on financial affairs for the Prime Minister, confirmed in an interview with Shafaq News Agency in March 2021 that the wars and economic blockade imposed on Iraq in the past era as well as the political conflicts we are currently seeing cause the dispersion of economic resources, so explaining the reasons behind the economy remaining rentier.
The Iraqi state’s continuous reliance on oil as the only source of the general budget exposes the nation to global crises that periodically arise from the impact of oil on them, which makes the country turn every time to cover the deficit either domestically or abroad, so indicating the incapacity to properly manage the state’s funds and the lack of alternative financing solutions.
