Pros and cons of Iraq joining the WTO
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
96 views
Added 2024/07/16 - 10:36 AM
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Since 2003, Iraq has adopted broad open policies towards the world and sought to establish important economic and legislative rules that operate according to the mechanisms of the market system, most of which helped improve Iraq’s foreign trade, after an economic blockade that lasted for more than a decade and led to Iraq’s marginalization on the map of the global economic system and deprived it of investment opportunities, progress, development and technological knowledge that should have helped it confront the rapid developments and changes that international markets have witnessed and whose competitive capabilities have changed dramatically over the past two decades at least.
Thus, Iraq became isolated from its international environment in the midst of a world swept by the currents of merging its companies, liberalizing its markets and integrating them, especially the financial ones, and the dominance of the new liberal doctrine, which required broad economic transformations in the field of information technology that became in harmony with the internationalism of productive activity through the role that multinational companies began to play and the increasing competitive advantage of the products that the world markets began to generate.
However, we find in the integration of financial markets, whose assets exceed $850 trillion, the main title of financial globalization and the main focus of dominance in the globalization of the new liberal economy. At the same time, it represents the trend of transition in the axes of international trade and the introduction to the transformation from the scope of the GATT Agreement signed in 1948 to the World Trade Organization Agreement (WTO), where the latter focused on regulating a wide range of trade in services, especially financial services, whose annexes were called the GATS Agreement in 1994 based on the Uruguay Round.
While the gross domestic product of the world's 192 economies does not exceed $83 trillion annually at present (and the value of world trade in goods and services has also not increased annually by more than a third of the aforementioned global output), we find that trade in currency conversion, speculation, and short-term capital movements exceeds about $4.5 trillion daily in international monetary and financial markets, a speculative financial trade whose annual total exceeds more than fifty times the total global trade in goods and services.
In the midst of these changes in the international commercial and financial space, Iraq has moved to important organizational levels in the transition to a market economy to break the effects of its international isolation by engaging in a strong area of economic liberalism that focused on liberalizing the areas of Iraq's foreign trade in goods and services and the means of financing them, despite the fluctuations in its organization, as well as the development and expansion of areas of progress achieved in some financial services and improving the environment for foreign investment through the legislation of the banking and investment laws and the Central Bank Law, which allows foreign banks to operate in Iraq and allows the transfer of capital and currency in a manner that serves Iraq's openness to the world in the conditions of a central rentier economy that is difficult to deal with in understanding market liberalism, which nevertheless led to providing positive opportunities and promising legal and organizational foundations for the Iraqi business environment.
However, all of this is not enough to put Iraq on the path of international economic competition. There are still more than five thousand legislative texts that hinder economic freedom and market activity, which are being studied by legal circles and which must be amended so that Iraq can integrate into international trade and investment and prepare it to join the World Trade Organization according to the terms of membership in it so that our country can obtain the most-favored nation status and the principle of national treatment.
However, the paradoxes of joining revolve around the issues of oil and agriculture, in addition to other problems of joining.
While oil sector production dominates nearly 50% of Iraq’s GDP, the sector employs only 2% of the Iraqi workforce, and the country’s crude oil exports and revenues constitute the near-absolute majority of total exports, general budget revenues, and foreign exchange earnings. In light of all this, the World Trade Organization excludes crude oil as a commodity within the group of raw commodities traded internationally, which remains the core of the contradiction in Iraq’s accession to that organization that excludes crude oil. If the World Trade Organization had allowed oil to be taken into account, the price would have been determined by global supply and demand, away from the cartel or consumer groups represented by the International Energy Agency and its lines and programs for rationalizing demand for oil. Or away from the cartel or producer groups represented by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its role in regulating production and influencing prices, which is the matter that imposed price and quantity restrictions on a commercial commodity, but a strategic and political one at the same time, which is the driving force of Iraq’s foreign trade.
On the other side of the Iraqi economy, we find the agricultural sector, which includes less than a third of the Iraqi population and about 22% of the Iraqi labor force, and does not contribute to the gross domestic product except by a percentage not exceeding 5%, which made the country a near-net importer of food or agricultural goods, the value of which exceeds 14 billion dollars annually. This important sector, which has been subjected to militarization and neglect over the past thirty years and more, does not have the sufficient components to provide food security in terms of grains or agricultural production requirements after the shrinkage of productive agricultural areas due to desertification, salinization, and the recent water crisis, which eliminated more than 50% of the lands prepared for agriculture, in addition to the deterioration of the agricultural infrastructure, 83% of whose components are controlled by the state as a public commodity.
Here the agricultural sector contradicts the oil sector structurally in the directions of openness to the global market and with two different wings in terms of the impact of commercial benefits and costs. The forces of the international market or global supply and demand have come to control strongly, whether in the demand for oil and its impact on the value of Iraqi exports or in the supply of food products and its impact on the cost of Iraq’s imports from them.
When referring to the philosophy of reducing customs restrictions by 24% and abolishing non-customs restrictions, which are the conditions imposed by the World Trade Organization on the member state in the group of developing countries to work with and implement them within a period of six years from the date of accession, in addition to reducing agricultural support by 13.3% within a period of ten years from accession, we find that these regulatory conditions of the World Trade Organization clash with the conditions and situations of the agricultural market and the global food stock exchange itself. If we look at the agricultural monopolies in the world in light of the deterioration of agricultural development in Iraq, we find a real threat to national food security that restricts the country in the event of joining the organization unless it is preceded by starting or following an agricultural program for self-sufficiency immediately. We will really need a green revolution similar to what Mexico and many Latin American countries have done. Especially if we know that there are between 3 to 6 major monopolistic companies in the world that control 80 to 90% of agricultural crop trade and control prices and quantities such as wheat, sugar, tea, coffee, cotton, jute, etc. At a time when ten multinational companies still control a third of the world's seed and pesticide production and trade.
Despite the above, Iraq’s entry and integration into the global economic space through the World Trade Organization and its dealings with international groups on terms that apply to everyone from a formal standpoint at a time when the world is still divided between the countries of the North and the South or the countries of the advanced industrial center and the developing periphery, Iraq has no choice but to leave its international isolation that it inherited since the blockade that began in 1990, which placed Iraq under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter or its aftermath, a chapter whose effects still provide a negative economic environment hostile to development and perhaps obstructing natural integration into the global market. This chapter prohibits levels of investment in advanced technology or easy dealings with the world due to the restrictions it imposes on our country as a high-risk country that threatens world peace and allows the use of force against it in a regrettable legacy for the civilization of Mesopotamia despite the disappearance of the objective reasons for which the economic blockade was imposed on Iraq. Noting that Iraq's accession to regional economic zones, such as the Greater Arab Free Trade Area and other economic agreements within the framework of the Arab League or other forms of regional integration and consolidation, must take into account the implementation of the provisions contained in the World Trade Organization Agreement and before it the GATT Agreement, both of which have become binding restrictions on the implementation of trade agreements. Thus, any trade facilitations within the framework of regional agreements become useless or worthless if they are less than the facilitations provided within the framework of the World Trade Organization.
Finally, Iraq's continued isolation from its international environment will cost it a lot due to the loss of organizational advantages and opportunities, technological and legal benefits, and other areas of investment and arbitration, which are opportunities that isolation from the world does not provide and does not enable a gradual transformation into a group of stable and low-risk countries, a transformation that encourages international cooperation in a secure global investment and trade environment, provided that effective development begins based on the strong push program.
96 views
Added 2024/07/16 - 10:36 AM
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Today at 6:40 pm by Bama Diva
» RFK Jr. Suspends Presidential Campaign, Backs Trump
Today at 6:32 pm by Bama Diva
» NYC on Track to Spend $10 Billion on Illegal Aliens Over 3 Years
Today at 5:33 pm by Bama Diva
» California Proposal to Give Home Loans to Illegal Aliens Comes Under Fire
Today at 5:29 pm by Bama Diva
» Biden Administration’s Latest Illegal Immigration Scam: The BorderLine
Today at 5:25 pm by Bama Diva
» The Facts Behind Biden-Harris Admin’s Loss of 300K Migrant Kids
Today at 5:22 pm by Bama Diva
» Harley-Davidson’s Retreat on Woke Policy Revs Up the Grassroots
Today at 5:20 pm by Bama Diva
» utube 8/22/24 MM&C IQD Update - Iraqi Dinar News - FED Court Reject Appeal - WTO - Purchase Power
Today at 7:13 am by Rocky
» utube 8/20/24 MM&C Iraq Dinar News -IQD Update - A ReCap of Events - PetroDinar - Al-Sudani Moneta
Today at 7:12 am by Rocky
» 8/22/24 MM&C Trade holds virtual meeting with WTO to discuss ways of cooperation and joint coordina
Today at 7:12 am by Rocky
» Al-Halbousi refused to attend.. A meeting between Barzani and Al-Khanjar
Today at 7:08 am by Rocky
» "Sedition" of auctions against Al-Sudani.. The government is "balanced" and the people will confront
Today at 7:03 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani: Government reforms raised tax revenues by 22%
Today at 7:02 am by Rocky
» Iraq grants work permits to more than 196,000 foreign workers in 5 months
Today at 7:01 am by Rocky
» $65 billion is the volume of Iraq's trade exchange with 11 countries for the first half of 2024
Today at 6:57 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Finance: Iraq needs more than 7 trillion monthly to finance salaries
Today at 6:55 am by Rocky
» Politician: Water file and development path are not a justification for the government’s silence in
Today at 5:20 am by Rocky
» MP Al-Maliki: US Ambassador's statements lead to more chaos and instability
Today at 5:18 am by Rocky
» Al-Tamimi: Basra Council is working on developing a plan to enhance investment in Iraq
Today at 5:17 am by Rocky
» Planning announces the cancellation of receiving files of contracting companies and contractors and
Today at 5:16 am by Rocky
» Wael Abdel Latif: The Minister of Oil hides what is behind the obstacle
Today at 5:14 am by Rocky
» Türkiye raises the stakes... Baghdad and the region are obliged to remain silent
Today at 5:13 am by Rocky
» US withdrawal from Iraq...the lie of the century
Today at 5:11 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Legal Committee demands an official Iraqi position against the US Ambassador
Today at 5:09 am by Rocky
» Completion of plans for the largest investment hospital in eastern Iraq
Today at 5:08 am by Rocky
» Is Iraq heading towards printing new paper currency?
Today at 5:05 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani: Government reform raised tax revenues by 22% in 8 months
Today at 5:03 am by Rocky
» Unemployment rates are rising in Iraq.. Economist: The government has lost young people
Today at 5:02 am by Rocky
» Parliamentarian calls on Sudanese regarding those manipulating state properties
Today at 5:01 am by Rocky
» New figures on the number of foreign visitors arriving in Iraq
Today at 5:00 am by Rocky
» 2025.. The year of reducing pollution and desertification in the country
Today at 4:59 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Agriculture: The agreement with Türkiye will regulate the file of “shared rivers”
Today at 4:58 am by Rocky
» Ports: Fluidity in trade exchange
Today at 4:57 am by Rocky
» Achievements reach 90% at the entrances of the immersed tunnel in Al-Faw Port
Today at 4:56 am by Rocky
» Clearing the land of the Al-Nebras Petrochemical Project from mines
Today at 4:55 am by Rocky
» Islamic Banks Association: A national electronic payment company contributes to enhancing developmen
Today at 4:53 am by Rocky
» Projects stalling between extinction and treatment
Today at 4:52 am by Rocky
» Oil revenues under the microscope of the Extractive Industries Transparency Authority
Today at 4:51 am by Rocky
» Planning: Cancellation of receiving paper files of contracting companies and contractors and switchi
Today at 4:47 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani stresses the importance of tax reforms in supporting the non-oil economy
Today at 4:44 am by Rocky
» Continued vacancy.. A complex crisis that is getting more complicated by Halbousi’s fingers and leav
Today at 4:42 am by Rocky
» Can Washington “limit” Tehran’s economic expansion in Iraq? Expert answers - Urgent
Today at 4:40 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani directs to study the project of establishing the first gas company in eastern Iraq
Today at 4:39 am by Rocky
» What happens after the gas crisis in Iran worsens? Will it affect Iraq? An expert answers
Today at 4:38 am by Rocky
» Cabinet Secretariat: There is no truth to converting self-financing companies to central financing
Today at 4:37 am by Rocky
» Economist points to a “solution” that will “lower” the dollar exchange rate
Today at 4:36 am by Rocky
» Iraq grants work permits to more than 196,000 foreign workers in 5 months
Today at 4:35 am by Rocky
» Economist puts “extortion, bribery and smuggling” as the main causes of dollar exchange rate fluctua
Today at 4:33 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani: Iraq preceded other countries in the region in introducing artificial intelligence studie
Today at 4:32 am by Rocky
» Economist offers solutions to address the violations of low-income people in public places
Today at 4:31 am by Rocky
» Gas flares poison Basra’s atmosphere…and the concerned authorities are “silent”
Today at 4:30 am by Rocky
» "Iraq's loss is great" .. Arrest of 4 accused of smuggling oil derivatives
Today at 4:29 am by Rocky
» Economist explains the benefit of the “trade exchange platform” and confirms: US Treasury sanctions
Today at 4:28 am by Rocky
» Warning of a financial crisis due to manipulation of budget tables... and a demand to reveal the fac
Today at 4:27 am by Rocky
» Iraqi MPs launch campaign to collect signatures to summon Central Bank Governor to Parliament
Today at 4:26 am by Rocky
» The political crisis continues.. The selection of the parliament speaker is delayed despite intensiv
Today at 4:24 am by Rocky
» Loans to buy houses and cars from TBI Bank.. up to 150 million
Today at 4:23 am by Rocky
» Iraq and Saudi Arabia discuss activating the joint coordination council
Today at 4:22 am by Rocky
» Barzani chairs meeting in Erbil to resolve issue of electing parliament speaker
Today at 4:21 am by Rocky
» Labor announces the launch of full-time appointee salaries
Today at 4:20 am by Rocky
» Iraq shares Kirkuk oil profits with BP. Will it succeed in attracting international companies?
Today at 4:19 am by Rocky
» A year after its approval, the Council of Ministers approves the transfer of “Al-Rashid Camp” to sus
Today at 4:18 am by Rocky
» Economist describes unemployment as a “time bomb” and explains: its continuation is a loss to the na
Today at 4:17 am by Rocky
» Between voluntary and natural oil production cuts... How will Iraq's economy be affected?
Today at 4:16 am by Rocky
» Higher Education announces the results of amending the nomination and accepting students of the prev
Today at 4:15 am by Rocky
» Border Ports Authority: The number of visitors arriving in Iraq exceeded 3 million and 200 thousand
Today at 4:12 am by Rocky
» Oil announces export of liquefied gas from Iraqi ports after increasing its local production
Today at 4:10 am by Rocky
» Lebanon announces payment of $530 million of Iraqi fuel dues, $250 million remaining
Today at 4:09 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Committee Talks About Iraq-Turkey Agreement, Calls for New Dams
Today at 4:08 am by Rocky
» Trade Bank of Iraq announces details of 4 types of loans for employees
Today at 4:07 am by Rocky
» Ankara denies allegations of ending Turkish military presence in Iraq
Today at 4:04 am by Rocky
» The House of Representatives enters the line.. Relationships provide investment opportunities for a
Today at 4:02 am by Rocky
» Rocky lost internet for 2 days be back around 4 am CST
Yesterday at 2:41 pm by Rocky
» Within 14 days, about 3 million foreign visitors entered Iraq
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:24 am by Rocky
» Iraqi Ports reveals the completion rates of the entrances to the submerged tunnel, one of the projec
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:23 am by Rocky
» Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani chairs meeting of the Supreme Committee for Artificial Intell
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:21 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary criticism of the American position on amending the “personal status”
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:19 am by Rocky
» New mechanism to collect fees for media professionals coming to Iraq
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:17 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary request for a complaint against the damage caused by oil companies in Basra
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:16 am by Rocky
» Parliament Presidency: Amending the system clashes with the blocs’ rejection and accusations against
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:14 am by Rocky
» Here are the dollar prices in the Iraqi stock exchanges
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:12 am by Rocky
» "Theft of the Century"... Can the trial of the accused "Nour Zuhair" be public?
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:10 am by Rocky
» Spending more than 10 trillion dinars annually to operate electricity
Wed 21 Aug 2024, 4:09 am by Rocky
» utube 8/19/24 MM&C Central Bank of Iraq - WTO - Remove Zeros? - Petr
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 7:12 am by Rocky
» utube 8/19/24 What to Expect from the Introduction of New Lower Denomination Notes
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 7:11 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Committee Demands Interior Ministry to Open Investigation into Assault on Health Profe
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 7:07 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Security reveals a 60% increase in “positive communications” across Iraq
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 7:06 am by Rocky
» Early elections: a real controversy or an incentive for Al-Sudani’s government?
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 7:05 am by Rocky
» Azm: Supporting Al-Mashhadani will help resolve the parliament presidency crisis
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 7:04 am by Rocky
» Foreign remittance sales at the Central Bank of Iraq auction increased by nearly 100%
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 7:02 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani identifies the electricity problem in Iraq
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 7:00 am by Rocky
» Basra announces the start of the trial operation of the iron and steel plant
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 6:59 am by Rocky
» A representative reveals who benefits from the general amnesty law
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 6:58 am by Rocky
» Al-Karawi revealed the date for the interrogation of the Central Bank Governor
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 6:57 am by Rocky
» Chairman of the Retirement Authority: The rights and entitlements of martyrs’ families are among the
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 6:55 am by Rocky
» Industry and Oil discuss prospects for cooperation to advance the national industry
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 6:54 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Finance Committee prepares to question the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq after
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 6:51 am by Rocky
» The "vague" Baghdad-Ankara agreements... Will they strengthen the Turkish military presence?
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 6:49 am by Rocky
» Prime Minister: The current government has no stalled projects
Tue 20 Aug 2024, 6:48 am by Rocky