Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Join the forum, it's quick and easy

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.
Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Many Topics Including The Oldest Dinar Community. Copyright © 2006-2020


    Transcript of the MENA and CCA Press Briefing

    Rocky
    Rocky
    Rocky
    Admin Assist
    Admin Assist


    Posts : 269035
    Join date : 2012-12-21
    • Post n°1

    Transcript of the MENA and CCA Press Briefing Empty Transcript of the MENA and CCA Press Briefing

    Post by Rocky Mon 13 Oct 2014, 12:54 pm

    Transcript of the MENA and CCA Press Briefing




    Washington, D.C.

    Friday, October 10, 2014

    Speaker:

    Director, Middle East and Central Asia Department



    The whole transcript is long so I just posted the parts that included comments on Iraq...



    So let me start off with the Middle East and North Africa. And before I go into individual countries or groups of countries let me make a couple of general remarks. And the first one really is that if you look at what's been happening the region, the deepening conflicts in Libya, in Iraq, continuation of civil war in Syria, conflict in Gaza, have obviously had in the first instance a very high humanitarian tragedy for the countries themselves. And they've also had an impact on those countries directly. Their direct impact so far, the spillover effects to other countries in the region in terms of numbers is not yet showing up in terms of the numbers, but it's very clear that when you talk to policy makers and you look at what's happening in these other countries that there has been an effect in terms of refugees. As you know that of the 11 million people that have been displaced by these conflicts a number of them have gone into neighboring countries. There's been an impact on labor markets and on social cohesion in the neighboring countries, on their budgets.





    QUESTIONER: I wonder if you could give us a few words on the threat from Islamic State. It's a simple economic question. Does it in itself mean that developmental goals might be threatened but also economic forecasts, might they be impinged upon by the spread of this group? What's your forecast for how that could affect the regional economy?

    MR. AHMED: Thank you very much. Well, let me say two things about that which you're looking, just coming out of the numbers on the economic impact. The first thing is that if you look at what is happening to the economic forecasts in the countries, let's take Iraq, let's talk also other countries in the region where there's conflict. But if you look at Iraq, you see that the economic forecast for those countries have been marked down.

    In the case of Iraq now, for example, we're expecting a slight contraction in the economy this year. You also see the consequence of that in terms of the pressures of the budget. You see some reduction in the external reserves that Iraq has. They're down by about 10 billion in the month leading, you know, and the latest numbers that we have are about 68 or so billion.

    So clearly, there is an economic impact and I don't want to suggest at all that the economic impact is the dominant issue. Clearly, there is a much bigger social, humanitarian, political which I am not getting into but I don't want to ignore it.

    When you look at the numbers, however, of other countries in the region, say Jordan or Lebanon, to take two which are affected by what is happening in Iraq, you don't see in the projection yet any marking down of growth rates for this year. What you see is pressures in terms of refugees. What you see is pressures of the budget, what you see is pressures in terms of housing markets and of social tension sometimes. But so far, it's not showing up in the projections of economic growth.

    Now, why is that? And perhaps one reason is that the numbers that were there even before these recent advances of the terrorist groups, even before that, the numbers were already low. Say for Jordan it's about three percent some weak recovery from last year. For Lebanon it's only less than two percent growth rate. But that's one reason.

    The second reason is that domestic factors are affecting the growth outlook as much as what is happening outside in those countries. So in the case of Lebanon, for example, fiscal situation has been deteriorating. The country has been having difficulty making decisions because of the political vacuum. And these things are all tied together but that may be another reason why they are having it.

    The final thing I'll say to you on this is that looking forward, the risk that these -- this advances of ISIL could pose not just to economic numbers in the country where they're active but also in the neighbors is clearly one major dimension of the overall risks that I mentioned earlier. So as I said, in the case of Iraq, oil production so far has more or less held up because the areas where oil is produced have not yet largely been affected by this conflict.

    But if it were to spread, then clearly, that would have an impact on oil production in Iraq. That would have an impact on the economic activity in Iraq. Today the impact has been more outside of oil especially in terms of the effect on infrastructure, on energy, on the private sector activity, but you could see that spreading.

     
     

    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
    • Back to top
      Current date/time is Sun 28 Apr 2024, 2:05 am