Economists: Corona crisis a golden opportunity to develop the national economy

Economists: Corona crisis a golden opportunity to develop the national economy

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Sunday 03 May 2020
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Economists: Corona crisis a golden opportunity to develop the national economy
Baghdad / Al-Sabah
 
Calls are mounting for economists and specialists for the financial and economic affairs to promote the economic sectorparallel oil sector in light of the collapse of world oil prices to free the national economy from the unipolar economy to an open economy multi-income, returning that the current crisis "Corona" is a golden opportunity to review economic policies to develop the national economy.
"Iraq has gone through many previous experiences and has not benefited from it, as the previous economic crises of 2008 and 2014 due to the collapse of oil prices, despite the availability of economic potential and potential to diversify the state's financial resources," economist Salem al-Bayati told Al-Sabah.
 
Project support 
"The current crisis requires the state to give great importance to the upgrading of parallel economic sectors, which support the national economy, namely agricultural, industrial and other sectors, and to activate the role of small enterprises," he said.
"Through small projects, we will be able to employ labor, absorb unemployment and put consumer products to the local markets that will spare Iraq from the importer, and this can be achieved in the short term, because it needs little capital and low costs, and therefore we will activate the small local industry and provide additional revenues to the state," he said.
"It is important to develop medium-term plans to improve the reality of agriculture and local industry, which through the granting of concessional loans can activate important industrial plants and develop agricultural products, in order to completely dispense with the import of goods and services, and this will bring the country a basic resource equivalent to that of oil," he said.
 
Manufacturing
"The government should develop long-term strategies to improve the realities of the economic sectors, by developing large factories and supporting oil manufacturing to transform the country into a developed industrial country," he said.
"The current crisis of the coronavirus outbreak and the collapse of oil prices is an opportunity for Iraq to review its economic policies and develop sectors parallel to the oil sector to get rid of the dominance of the irrigation sector over the economy's resources," he said.
"Plans are needed to diversify the country's financial resources," said Abdul Hassan al-Shammari, an industry expert.
"The country has vital economic sectors that can be parallel to the oil sector, including the industrial sector," al-Shammari told Al-Sabah, adding that "local industry needs to be developed as a major source of diversification of the country's financial resources."
 
Local product
"The state lacks a clear economic policy through which it can use iraq's economic potential to develop the national economy," he said, adding that "Iraq has enormous potential and high expertise that can be properly employed to support other economic sectors."
He called for "the need to activate laws supporting the domestic product, such as the product protection law and the consumer protection law, as well as the activation of tariffs and control of border crossings for the purpose of supporting local industry."

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