Wasted wealth.. More than 50% of Iraqi factories are out of operation

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[size=52]Wasted wealth.. More than 50% of Iraqi factories are out of operation[/size]

[size=45]Successive Iraqi governments have failed to reactivate idle government factories, and have not even allowed many factories with semi-governmental ties in which the state is an essential part of the financiers to return to work again, such as clothing, leather, home furniture, and other factories, which has led to a major economic stagnation and an almost complete dependence on oil sales to finance everything the state needs on the one hand, and secure the salaries of millions of employees on the other hand.
Economic expert Nabil Al-Marsoumi warned of the repercussions of the crisis witnessed by the industrial sector in Iraq, stating that “more than 50% of the factories registered in the country are out of service,” explaining that “Iraq has about 67,000 factories registered with the Federation of Industries, but 35,000 of them have stopped for various reasons, including the lack of government support for fuel and electricity, in addition to opening the doors to imports for subsidized foreign goods.”
Al-Marsoumi added, via a post on his Facebook page, that “this crisis is leading to the deterioration of the local economy, which increases dependence on imports and negatively affects the country’s trade balance.”
Over the past years, Iraqi activists, traders and investors have sought to revive the local industry through campaigns to encourage local and national products, but the campaigns did not continue due to the lack of financial support for factories from the government.
Member of Parliament Hadi Al-Salami said, “Iraqi factories and plants are the country’s hope to eliminate unemployment on the one hand, and revive the treasury and reduce dependence on oil as a primary resource for the state. However, the government’s failure in this file has been a prominent feature throughout the past two decades,” indicating that “wills have prevented Iraqi factories and plants from returning to work, because they may cause harm to those who benefit from open imports.”
Al-Salami added that “the disruption of Iraqi factories and plants is perhaps intentional by those who benefit from imports, especially since most of the companies working in imports benefit parties directly and indirectly,” explaining that “keeping these factories closed means increasing the exhaustion of the state treasury and harming it.”
The economic and financial advisor to the Iraqi government, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, had previously proposed establishing a permanent committee for productive partnership between the public and private sectors, noting that “among the activities he proposed to open up for partnership are investment in agriculture, digital services, and operating factories, to be able to generate millions of job opportunities.”
Last September, Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani confirmed that his government has no intention of privatizing government companies, stressing the trend towards the industrial sector to cover the needs of the local market and export the surplus.
For his part, Hassan Thaer, a member of the Iraqi Federation of Industries, pointed out that “one of Iraq’s current problems is the lack of an economic alternative other than oil, and that reliance on oil will ultimately lead to the collapse of the country’s economic system, especially since governments have neglected industry, trade, and agriculture.”
Thaer said that “neglecting local factories and plants in Iraq will lead to the continued spread of poverty and unemployment, and ultimately create an unstable social environment.”
According to the head of the advisors of the Iraqi Federation of Industries, Aqil Raouf, removing obstacles to the Federation’s program to restart existing factories and establish new ones could contribute to providing job opportunities for about 3 million unemployed people in Iraq.[/size]
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