The adviser to the Iraqi Prime Minister for Financial Affairs, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, revealed that the external public debt has decreased to $20 billion. In comparison to record levels of $133 billion in September 2020.
Salih pointed out that "Iraq's external public debt is in decline, and it is around $20 billion," adding that "the general budget bears the debt-amortization services," affirming that "the internal debt is still the largest at the present time, and exceeds the external debt three times, but it remains exclusively within the government financial system, and has no connection with the public.”
Salih emphasized that "Iraq is in recovery and will inevitably live in the next 2022 without financial hardship or financing restrictions caused by a lack of revenue, due to the recovery of the energy market and the boom in demand for oil, in addition to the increase in the proceeds of Iraq's oil production by 400 thousand barrels per day," noting that "the addition to the current total oil production and unaided, will generate an additional annual revenue estimated at about 17 trillion Iraqi dinars, if the average price of a barrel of oil reaches $75.”
Iraq, which depends 95 percent of its budget in 2021 on oil, plans to increase its oil exports in the first quarter of 2022.
Source (Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, Edited)
