The Five-Year Plan: Reviving the Economy, Increasing Growth, and Fighting Corruption

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[size=52]The Five-Year Plan: Reviving the Economy, Increasing Growth, and Fighting Corruption[/size]

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2024/08/06
His Excellency the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning, Dr. Muhammad Ali Tamim
Baghdad: Haider Falih Al-Rubaie
The government has strengthened its efforts aimed at achieving further progress in various economic, industrial, agricultural and tourism aspects, in addition to making intensive efforts to increase human development rates. While the Ministry of Planning launched the five-year national development plan early this week, which extends until 2028, and included programs that would improve the reality of services, and set a space for achieving good governance, appropriate mechanisms to combat corruption and adopt the principles of transparency, economic experts expressed their welcome to this step, which they described as “pivotal” in the transition from rentierism to economic diversification, attracting foreign investments, and developing the reality of the public and private sectors.[/size]
[size=45]Immediately after Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced the launch of the five-year development plan, the United Nations praised the move, noting its importance in focusing on human capital, sustainable development, and economic diversification, which will enhance Iraq’s path towards the sustainable development goals.[/size]
[size=45]According to Al-Sudani, the plan represents the government’s awareness of the importance of the country having a development plan with achievable paths and goals, stressing the importance of adhering to the plan’s goals, as they are the way to change the lives of Iraqis for the better.[/size]
[size=45]In turn, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning Dr. Mohammed Ali Tamim, in his speech during the plan launch conference, stressed that “the five-year development plan 2024-2028 has set a development path based on a different vision that relies on using the available capabilities of the state and the private sector, acquiring knowledge in its technical and scientific development, and building a social market economy system while adopting administrative reform policies and enhancing international cooperation paths.”[/size]
[size=45]The government’s steps aimed at improving the economic and developmental reality were widely welcomed, as the economic expert, Dr. Ali Daadoush, indicated during his speech that “the National Development Plan is the most important economic program, and it is capable of addressing problems and achieving reforms at the level of all sectors and activities, whether at the level of the public or private sector.”[/size]
[size=45]Daadoush believes that “the plan’s positive repercussions on the reality of the economy and society are multiple. It can contribute to the shift from rentierism to economic diversification, attract foreign investments, and develop the reality of the public and private sectors, as the government sector can support the infrastructure and foundations to facilitate and ease the work of the private sector and achieve sustainable economic growth.”[/size]
[size=45]Despite the many positives of the plan, expert Daadoush explains that “investing in human capital” represents one of the most prominent paragraphs of the five-year plan, as this matter achieves an increase in sustainable development rates in parallel with (technological and financial) developments in the banking system.[/size]
[size=45]In order for the plan to succeed and ensure the highest percentage of its paragraphs are achieved, the speaker stressed the need to draft a legislative law that will be approved by the House of Representatives to implement it continuously over the coming years, and not to leave it on the shelf and become a waste of public money.[/size]
[size=45]The researcher and economic specialist, Bassam Raad, did not stray far from the previous opinion, when he pointed out that “the five-year development plan outlined national priorities and strategic directions through its focus on economic diversification programs and the pursuit of achieving goals that are primarily concerned with stimulating economic activity and developing the macroeconomic environment.”[/size]
[size=45]Economic researcher Raad explains that “the development plan was prepared despite the exceptional circumstances and changes at the regional and international levels, in addition to the fluctuations in oil prices and the weakness of global economic growth, and the effects of all of the above on the various economic, social and geopolitical sectors of a rentier country like Iraq.”[/size]
[size=45]Raad also believes that “the plan aims to achieve economic reform in all its banking, financial, commercial and monetary dimensions, direct government spending towards direct productive sectors, complete infrastructure projects, the Grand Faw Port and spend on human capital through allocations for spending on education, health and housing.”[/size]
[size=45]The economic researcher praises what the plan included, which relied primarily on the participatory approach between all ministries and institutions. Accordingly, achieving the plan’s objectives requires achieving an integrated structural reform alongside economic reform and the presence of an efficient government apparatus that believes in joint work to achieve the plan’s objectives and relies on the foundations of competence, professionalism and accountability.[/size]
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