Investing in Iraq's natural wealth is a step towards economic integration

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[size=52]Investing in Iraq's natural wealth is a step towards economic integration[/size]

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Baghdad: Hoda Al-Azzawi
03/26/2024
Experts in financial and economic affairs called for investing the enormous natural resources that Iraq possesses in a correct scientific and systematic manner that contributes to removing the country from the vortex of the “one-way rentier” economy represented by oil and gas, to reach integration in various industrial and agricultural aspects. And commercial.
According to the classification of international economic institutions, Iraq ranks ninth in the world in terms of its possession of raw natural resources, amounting to approximately 16 trillion dollars.
Advisor to the Prime Minister for Financial and Economic Affairs, Dr. Mazhar Muhammad Salih, said in an interview: “Iraq ranks ninth in the world in the value of natural resources and wealth stored in the ground - which global economic circles estimate as stored wealth at prevailing prices - at no less than 16 to 17 Trillion US dollars.
He explained that “the reports of the geological survey experts in Iraq confirm that the country has the first reserve in the world of sulfur and the second reserve of phosphate after Morocco,” noting that “the reports were previously completed by the experts of the Iraqi Geological Survey, within the project (identifying reserves), as For example, approximately 10 billion tons of phosphate and others were discovered.” Saleh added, “With the exception of the current investment in oil and gas wealth, the Iraqi economy has the opportunity to optimally exploit these mineral and other natural resources,” noting that “the draft economic reform law and the natural resources investment law constitute Iraq’s future strategy for the birth of investment partnerships with the private sector in accordance with A broad production chain that goes beyond the extraction and export section, so that the extraction outputs go to the manufacturing of the raw materials themselves as inputs, which are chains that will undoubtedly generate and maximize added value.”
He explained that “such an approach is one of the country’s economic diversification policies and the elimination of (rentier unilateralism), and it is an approach that undoubtedly creates a solid development base based on creating exports to global markets with high-value export revenues that are in the interest of the current account of the Iraqi balance of payments.”
He noted that “such a policy in investment, partnership and development; “It requires a pattern of investment rates that maximize production and annual national income, the basis of which is certainly the investment and production partnership between the state and the private sector.”
The specialized international economic website Statista published a report on the natural resources possessed by the countries of the world, where Iraq ranked ninth in the world, as it possesses 15.9 trillion dollars in natural resources, and its desert terrain contains oil, natural gas, phosphate and sulfur, according to the website.
For his part, the head of the “Regional Center for Studies” Ali Al-Sahib said in an interview: “Iraq possesses many important natural resources, especially expensive materials such as sulfur and mercury, in addition to gas, coal, and others, and therefore it was possible for Iraq to leave the so-called (Dutch bug).” ) in terms of its dependence on oil alone, in addition to the possibility of achieving a significant increase in its financial income that would raise the purchasing power of the Iraqi individual.
He noted that “Iraq’s investment in these minerals and gas, in addition to oil - and it possesses the second oil reserve in the world - qualifies it to be one of the rich countries, despite the fact that the living reality of the Iraqi individual is witnessing negative repercussions due to the presence of a corruption system that is corroding the Iraqi body and striking its institutions.”
He added, “Iraq does not possess - especially after 2003 - the devices and equipment capable of extracting these buried resources in the ground, but it can contract with major international companies specialized in this matter in order to achieve a qualitative leap in the economic and even industrial fields. With this measure, it will have moved far, even if “Partly based on dependence on oil revenues.”[/size]
[size=45]Edited by: Muhammad Al-Ansari[/size]
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