Iraq Business News brings you the latest Iraq banking & finance news, with information on developments and opportunities.
USAID-Tijara’s Inclusive Financial Services Stakeholders’ Conference began with a pledge to provide greater financial services to people living below Iraq’s poverty line of $2.20 a day and ended with a celebration of innovative loan products that have created or sustained 203,500 jobs since 2003. Participants at the Nov. 28-30 symposium in Erbil debated new Iraqi […]
An adviser to the Iraqi Central Bank said on Wednesday that the 2011 budget will result in economic growth of 10%. Muzher Mohammed told AKnews that the 2011 budget in its present state is one of the best Iraqi budgets since 2003 as it will increase the country's economic output by 10%, and it will […]
I used to think that rapid increases in Iraqi oil production would practically guarantee a significant strengthening of the dinar over the next ten years. Surprisingly, however, history suggests that this is far from a foregone conclusion. While the Oil Ministry claims that Iraqi capacity will rise by 10 million barrels per day (mn bbl/d) […]
Last week a Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) official revealed that October year-on-year core CPI inflation jumped to 3.2% from just 1.87% in September, breaking a nine-month downtrend. At first glance, you might conclude that Iraq is now at the start of the same CPI uptrend that its neighbors, and indeed much of the developing […]
The Iraqi Central Bank announced recently an increase in its reserves of foreign currency to more than $ 50 billion, up from $ 41 billion at the end of the first half of 2010. Mohammed Salih, an advisor to the bank, said in an interview with Radio Free Iraq that this increase is attributable to […]
Iraq's Central Bank has reportedly granted new banking licences to four new private banks, each with capital of 250 billion Iraqi dinars [$212 million]. This reportedly brings the number of private banks operating in Iraq to 35. Meanwhile, an economic advisor to the Prime Minister is quoted as saying that a package of incentives is […]
The Trade Bank of Iraq plans to expand abroad and almost double of the number of its branches in Iraq next year to benefit from an anticipated oil boom, the bank's chairman, Hussein al-Uzri, told Reuters. The state-run bank is also eyeing financing deals in the energy sector as OPEC member Iraq moves ahead with […]
The formation of a new Iraqi government will undoubtedly be good for stock market sentiment, as such events generally are. And indeed the market has pretty obviously turned around already, with volumes increasing and the Rabee Securities index up about 6% since bottoming in early October. But skeptics may still argue that investors have no […]
A leading official in the Iraqi Ministry of Finance said on Monday that the Iranian banks currently operating in Iraq, and those planning to open branches in the country, are not covered by UN sanctions as they are not state-owned. The Finance Ministry’s undersecretary, Fadel Nabi, told AKnews that the Iranian banks present in Iraq […]
With the stated aim of contributing to the reform of the Iraqi banking sector, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE)'s Banking Institute has begun training employees of Iraq's central bank in modern methods of banking and finance, administration and human resources. According to Banking Institute Executive Director, Hala al-Said, the move comes within the context […]
An official from the Central Bank of Iraq said on Monday that the core annual inflation rate in Iraq jumped to 3.2 percent in October, from 1.9 percent in September, due to rising costs of housing, water and electricity. Spending on fuel is excluded from the calculations. "The inflation rate is still under control", senior […]
The oil and finance ministries agreed to set the price of oil barrel at $73, to be endorsed in the 2011 state budget, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told Aswat al-Iraq news agency at the weekend. “The agreement comes in light of an export rate of 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd), including the oil […]
