Iraqi Economic News and Points to Ponder Wed AM 9-6-23
Iraq Ranks 4th In The Arab World And 30th In The World With The Largest Gold Reserves
Economy |Baghdad today – follow-up Today, Wednesday (September 6, 2023), the World Gold Council announced that Iraq has maintained its 30th rank in the world with the largest gold reserves.
A schedule of the council for the current month of September 2023, seen by “Baghdad Today,” stated that “Iraq maintained its rank 30 globally out of 100 countries listed in the table with the largest reserves of gold, despite its purchase of 2.3 tons of gold in the month of May, bringing its possession of gold to 132.6 tons, which is It represents 7.6% of the rest of its other reserves.
He added, “Iraq ranked fourth in the Arab world with the largest reserves of gold, after Saudi Arabia, 323.1 tons, Lebanon 286.8 tons, Algeria 173.6 tons, and Egypt ranked fifth, with 125.9 tons.”
He pointed out, “The most central banks buying gold during the second quarter of 2023 was the share of Poland, as it bought 48.41 tons, followed by China by 45.10 tons, followed by the Czech Republic 6.06 tons, then Russia 3.11 tons, while the most central banks of countries sold gold. During this period, Turkey’s share came with 132.23 tons, followed by Tunisia with 18.50 tons, and then Uzbekistan with 4.04 tons.
According to the table, “the United States of America still leads the rest of the countries with the largest possession of gold in the world, at 8,133 thousand tons, followed by Germany with 3,352 thousand tons, and then Italy came with 2,451 thousand tons, while Suriname ranked 100th with 1.5 tons, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina with the same amount by 1.5 ton”.
On June 27, 2022, Iraq announced the purchase of new quantities of gold, amounting to approximately (34) tons, an increase of 35% over what was in its possession, while in May it announced its purchase of 2.3 tons of gold. LINK
An Iranian Warning Of The “Dangerous” Development Of Iraqi Infrastructure
WED, 06-09-2023, TAYSEER AL-ASADI An Iranian report stated, on Wednesday, that Iraq had acquired 20% of the country’s exports over the past year, warning at the same time of the danger of excluding Iran from the Iraqi market due to infrastructure development.
And the Iranian Farsi-language news agency Donya Al-Iqtisad wrote, on the sidelines of a press interview it conducted with the head of the Iranian-Iraqi Joint Chamber of Commerce, Yahya Al-Ishaq, that “Iran’s exports to Iraq during the past year amounted to 10 billion dollars, which is equivalent to nearly 20% of Iran’s exports.” To the countries of the world, while Iran’s exports during the first five months of this year 2023 amounted to about $3.5 billion, a growth rate of 18.5% compared to the same period last year.
The report of the Iranian agency specialized in economic affairs indicated that “exports clearly represent the strategic importance of Iraq in Iran’s trade map, which is the opposite of China, to which raw materials are exported,” noting that “most of Iranian exports to Iraq are finished products.”
She pointed out that “the structural changes in the Iraqi economy and the country’s focus on developing infrastructure prompted experts to warn of the danger of excluding Iran from the country’s market, which would lead to the advantage of Iranian goods to compete in the Iraqi market.”
And it indicated that “according to current investigations, it was found that a total of 351 major products are exported by Iran to Iraq. If competitors enter this market, Iranian products still have an advantage in only 35 products.”
Earlier, the Tehran Chamber of Commerce announced that its exports to Iraq during the past year exceeded $10 billion, and indicated that Iraq will be an important market for Iran in the next 15 years.
Follow ups https://non14.net/public/159946
Source: Erdogan Will Visit Iraq Next Month…And Reveal The Latest Negotiations To Export The Region’s Oil
Time: 09/06/2023 Read: 1,950 times Source: {Politics: Al Furat News} Sources said that it is not expected to resume pumping Iraqi oil to Turkey before next October, during which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is likely to visit Baghdad, after postponing the visit that was initially planned to take place last August. .
Turkey suspended export flows from northern Iraq on March 25 after an ICC ruling in an arbitration case required Ankara to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in compensation for allowing KRG oil exports without permission between 2014 and 2018.
Iraq filed a petition in April with a US federal court to enforce the decision by the International Chamber of Commerce. The sources said that the lack of progress in settling this lawsuit was one of the reasons behind the postponement of Erdogan’s visit to Baghdad in August.
A senior Turkish official said Erdogan still plans to visit Baghdad and “wants to sign an agreement,” but “so far Iraq has not taken the concrete steps expected of it,” which has led to a lack of progress.
The source added that one of the steps that Ankara is seeking is to stop the lawsuit in the United States, and that is why Erdogan is scheduled to visit Iraq in October.
An official at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had not yet received a specific timetable from Ankara regarding the expected date of Erdogan’s visit to Iraq.
He added that Erdogan may visit Iraq at the end of this month or most likely in October, indicating that this will depend on the success of the talks related to energy issues, which require longer than expected due to the multiplicity of thorny issues.
An Iraqi oil official familiar with the talks said energy officials in Baghdad and Ankara were “holding complex discussions” and that resuming flows was “the hardest issue”. He ruled out the resumption of flows this month.
Two Iraqi oil officials familiar with the talks said Turkey was also seeking a compromise to reduce compensation to Iraq for damages under the ICC arbitration award.
Iraqi sources said earlier that Turkey wants Iraq to drop a second arbitration case related to exports covering the period from 2018 onwards.
The Turkish Energy Ministry has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Two informed sources said that the Iraqi Kurdistan government has lost about four billion dollars since the stoppage of oil flows to the Turkish port of Ceyhan through a pipeline. LINK
Growing Kuwaiti fears that the Federal Court will invalidate the Khor Abdullah agreement
Information / Baghdad… The Federal Court said its final word on Iraq’s agreement with Kuwait in the nineties of the last century regarding Khor Abdullah.
The court’s decision ruled the ratification of this agreement in accordance with the law in which two-thirds of Parliament are required to vote on any agreement that Iraq concludes with another country, despite Kuwait sending mediators in order to thwart any attempt to cancel the agreement and restore the Iraqi maritime borders.
This prompted the neighbor to open a channel of communication with Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein to discuss the latest developments, after the court issued a decision to revoke the ratification of the Khor Abdullah Agreement.
The representative of the State of Law coalition, Alia Nassif, told Al-Maalouma, that “national figures in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs were able to install a memorandum related to Iraq’s view of the sea and submitted it to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers for the purpose of voting on it.”
She added, “The Kuwaiti side quickly assigned two personalities from inside and outside the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs with an ambassadorial rank to put pressure on the ministry and the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers to withdraw the memorandum and not submit it to a vote. Indeed, the two personalities succeeded in persuading the ministry to withdraw the memorandum and that it keeps a copy of the book withdrawing the memorandum.”
Nassif called on Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani to “ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to return the first memorandum related to the borders with Kuwait that was withdrawn from the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers for the purpose of voting to compare it with any new memorandum related to the same subject.”
On the other hand, the head of the Parliamentary Rights Bloc, Representative Saud Al-Saadi, told Al-Maalouma, that “the Federal Court’s decision to invalidate Law 42 of 2013, which pertains to the ratification of the agreement regulating maritime navigation between Iraq and Kuwait in Khor Abdullah, is binding on application by the federal government.”
He added, “The Iraqi government must remove all effects and repercussions of this agreement and its implementation on Iraqi waters, which is binding.”
Al-Saadi added, “The agreement became canceled after the court’s decision, and Khor Abdullah returned to Iraq after the last decision.”
On the other hand, legal expert Ali Al-Tamimi explained to Al-Maalouma that “the agreement signed between Iraq and Kuwait in 2012 stipulates in Article 14 of it (in the event of a problem with the application or interpretation of the agreement, then resort to the Court of the Seas).”
He added, “Law No. 42, according to which the border demarcation agreement was ratified before the issuance of Law No. 35 of 2015 regarding the conclusion of Iraqi agreements, required the approval of two-thirds of parliament for any agreement.”
He pointed out that “this agreement is considered, from the point of view of the Federal Court, unconstitutional because it violates Article 61 Fourth of the Constitution, which stipulates that the agreements be enacted by a two-thirds majority.”
Yesterday, Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Al-Sahhaf revealed that Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein had received a call from his Kuwaiti counterpart, Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, where the two sides discussed the close bilateral relations linking the two brotherly countries and discussed the latest regional developments and current developments in the region, as well as discussing A number of issues of bilateral interest and everything that would achieve the common good of the two brotherly countries and peoples. LINK
Points To Ponder on Money:
The darkest hour of any man’s life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.- Horace Greeley
Laws go where dollars please.- Portuguese Proverb
Bankruptcy is a legal proceeding in which you put your money in your pants pocket and give your coat to your creditors.- Joey Adams
In the bad old days, there were three easy ways of losing money – racing being the quickest, women the pleasantest and farming the most certain.- William Pitt Amherst
Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repairing.-Billy Rose
What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of living high.- Doug Larson
Definition of the upper crust: A bunch of crumbs held together by dough.- Anonymous