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By John Lee.

Iraq's Minister of Finance, Ali Allawi, on Saturday concluded a visit to Saudi Arabia, during which he delivered a message from Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

During his visit, Mr. Allawi also held meetings with the Minister of Energy, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, the Minister of Finance, Mohammed Al-Jadaan, the Minister of  Commerce and Investment, Majid Al Qasabi, and other senior Saudi officials.

In a television interview before leaving Baghdad, Mr. Allawi said that his discussions with Saudi officials will focus on encouraging Saudi companies and institutions, especially in the fields of energy and agriculture, to enter the Iraqi market, invest in Iraq and play a part in the reconstruction of the country.

He underscored that the new Iraqi government is pressing ahead with plans to balance Iraq's economic relations with neighbouring countries, saying that the Iraqi market is open to all.

Iraq's Finance Minister acknowledged during the interview that there were several factors that discourage investors from coming to Iraq, and highlighted the legal and administrative frameworks, the banking system and land acquisition rules as some of the key impediments that the new government is determined to address in order to create a welcoming, modern and efficient investment climate in Iraq.

Mr. Allawi's visit to Saudi Arabia is the first in a series of planned official visits to countries in the region to strengthen economic cooperation and bolster trade.

(Source: Govt of Iraq)

From Middle East Monitor, under a Creative Commons licence. Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Iraq has incurred around $11 billion in losses in four months due to the global drop in oil prices, the State Organisation for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) announced yesterday.

"Over the first four months of 2020, Iraq sold approximately 409,096,972 barrels of crude oil at an average price of nearly $38 per barrel, achieving around $15.4 billion in revenue," SOMO said in a statement.

The state-run organisation added that the country sold 423,284,489 barrels during the same period of 2019 at an average price of $62 per barrel. "Iraq achieved a total of $26.2 billion in oil revenues in the first four months of 2019," the organisation added.

Reuters recently reported that oil prices had fallen yesterday as investors were worried about a second wave of coronavirus infections. But it added that the new output cuts from Saudi Arabia had tempered worries about oversupply and limited price losses.

Global oil demand has slumped by about 30 per cent as the coronavirus pandemic has curtailed movement across the world, leading to growing inventories globally.

While crude futures have fallen more than 55 per cent this year because of the virus, prices have risen over the past two weeks, supported by a modest rebound in demand as some travel restrictions - which were imposed by governments to curb the spread of the virus - were eased.

From Middle East Monitor, under a Creative Commons licence. Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

An official Kurdish delegation arrived on Sunday in the Iraqi capital Baghdad to discuss oil production.

"The delegation, led by the Kurdistan government's Finance Minister, Awat Sheikh Janab, will discuss the federal budget, low oil prices, and the region's participation in the Iraqi commitment to reduce oil production in accordance with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)'s decision," Kurdish Minister of State, Khalid Shwani, told reporters.

The Kurdistan Region recently said it would export "250,000 barrels per day of oil to Baghdad to support the Iraqi federal budget."

"The region must abide by the federal government's decision to reduce crude oil production," Shwani stressed.

Oil prices have fallen sharply since Russia and OPEC countries failed to agree on an additional 1.5 million barrels per day of oil production cuts in early March. Concerns over the market impact of the global coronavirus outbreak are compounding the price fall.

Saudi Arabia-led OPEC and Russia-led non-OPEC oil producing countries - a grouping known as OPEC+ that pumps over 40 per cent of the world's oil - agreed earlier this month to new oil production cuts which will come into effect in May and are expected to stabilise prices.

[This article has been edited to correct Khalid Shwani's title.]

By Ahmed Mousa Jiyad.

Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Oil Market Collapse, Damages the Iraqi Economy and Changes Oil Geopolitics

The collapse of the global oil market is undoubtedly unprecedented in its timing, magnitude, spread and devastating impacts across the globe. A strange and unpredicted association of a few, but major, factors had contributed to the current threat, causing much uncertainty and vulnerability on national and global levels.

The revised "OPEC+" production cut agreed on 12 April prompted initial minor improvement in oil price, but there remains very many serious concerns that such reduction is much below what is needed to bring stability to and balances a saturated global oil market.

This article aims at estimating the collapse in oil market on Iraq first then on both Russia and Saudi Arabia, as they are accused for "OPEC+" failure early last March that ignited the oil price war, and assesses the geopolitical and political economy consideration that contributed to and further complicate the impasse.  The article provides a summary of two articles written and published in Arabic recently and an update on recent deliberation by "OPEC+" and G20 Energy Ministers to rescue the situation and bring some stability to global oil market under  existing threat of Coronavirus to the world biosecurity.

My two articles attempt to provide comparative assessment of the impact of the collapse with particular focus on short-term horizon, i.e., the remaining nine months of this year under different Brent oil price scenarios on Iraq, first article , while the second focuses on Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Click here to download the full report in pdf format.

Mr Jiyad is an independent development consultant, scholar and Associate with the former Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES), London. He was formerly a senior economist with the Iraq National Oil Company and Iraq's Ministry of Oil, Chief Expert for the Council of Ministers, Director at the Ministry of Trade, and International Specialist with UN organizations in Uganda, Sudan and Jordan. He is now based in Norway (Email: mou-jiya(at)online.no, Skype ID: Ahmed Mousa Jiyad). Read more of Mr Jiyad's biography here.

By Ahmed Tabaqchali, CIO of Asia Frontier Capital (AFC) Iraq Fund.

Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

"The herd instinct among forecasters
makes sheep look like independent
thinkers" -- Edgar Fielder

The crash in oil prices, brought on by the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, and the collapse in consumption due to COVID-19, seems like the perfect storm to hit Iraq given its vulnerabilities to such external shocks.

Though, this is not the first perfect storm to hit it. The last one which was arguably more perfect than the current one took place in the summer of 2014 when ISIS took over a third of the country, threatening its imminent break-up, and for good measure oil prices crashed.

As in 2014, the fall in oil prices poses serious threats to Iraq's oil-dependent economy, but the current storm hits a very different Iraq from that of 2014 - especially changed this time is its equity market. Then, the equity market was at the end of a multi-year bull market that, as measured by the Rabee Securities RSISX USD Index (RSISUSD), had almost doubled by early 2014 from the levels of 2010.

Comparatively, now the equity market is at the end of a multi-year bear market that saw it decline 71% from the 2014 peak. Fuelling the 2014 bull market were foreign investor inflows and the government's multi-year investment spending program which boosted the economy and domestic liquidity. The opposite is true in the current bear market with most foreigners having withdrawn from the market and the government's investment spending having been practically non-existent for a number of years.

RSISUSD Index: Bull market 2010-2014 - Bear Market 2014-2020

(Source: Bloomberg)

The significant drop in oil revenues will force the government to sharply curtail expenditures in the same way that it did in 2014-2016, with negative consequences for the economy, yet unlike then the cuts will not be magnified by the need to shift resources to the sharply increasing cost of the ISIS conflict. The combination of the different profiles of investment spending and expenditures have vastly different implications for both the economy and equity market.

In 2014-2016 the dramatic cuts to investment spending and diversion of resources towards the war effort led to year-over-year contractions in non-oil gdp of 3.9% and 14.4% in 2014 and 2015 respectively. The severity of the drop was such that the small bounce of 1.3% in 2016 was followed by a 0.6% drop in 2017. The multiplier effect of these contractions negatively impacted corporate earnings and ultimately led to the equity market's multi-year decline.

Today's different circumstances mean that the non-oil economy will not face the same severe double whammy as then, and as such the contractions will be of a different magnitude. It will nevertheless be negatively impacted by the effects from the COVID-19 lockdown far more than any cuts to the government's investment spending. While every sector of the economy will feel the effects of the lockdown, the informal sector which is dominated by retail and hospitality and which accounts for the bulk of private sector economic activity will be particularly hard hit. Whereas, these effects on the equity market will be through a few sectors that dominate the market, consisting of banking, telecoms and consumers staples.

The banking sector was hurt the most between 2014-2016 as the cuts to the government's investment spending were disastrous for private sector businesses at the receiving end of the cuts, whose finances deteriorated. This in turn affected the quality of bank loans as these businesses accounted for the bulk of bank lending. Consequently, the banks' earnings suffered from the increasing non-performing loans (NPL's) coupled with negative loan growth, as well as losing funding sources due to negative deposit growth. The scale of the effects on private sector businesses from any future cuts by the government ought be smaller this time around and should not lead to the same negative effects for the banking sector. However, it would be reasonable to assume that the sector's tentative recovery will be on hold, while any reversal would be limited given the nascent recovery prior to the COVID-19 shock and the sector's limited exposure to the informal economy. With the sector contributing the most to the market's 71% decline from the 2014 peak, it's difficult to see how bank stock prices can decline much further in response to these developments.

Other reasonable assumptions that can be made are that telecom stocks could benefit from the increased need for broadband induced by the lockdown, while any moderation in consumption for soft drinks - whose local bottler accounts for the bulk of the consumer staples sector market capitalization in the equity market - should be limited. These are very early thoughts and much more data, on the economy and company specific, are needed before any meaningful analysis can be made. However, such data and analysis in the short term will play second fiddle to shifting expectations on the future direction of oil prices.

Forecasting the direction of oil prices, especially at critical junctures, is fraught with uncertainty, as subsequent prices have made a mockery of all predictions throughout recent history: from those calling for ever higher prices when "peak oil" was the consensus thinking, to those calling for ever lower prices when "lower for longer" became the consensus. However, analysing the supply-demand for oil, while equally fraught with uncertainty, it is possible to analyse a few broad trends to help frame expectations for the general direction of prices.

The effects of the lockdowns related to COVID-19 have been profound on the global demand for oil given that about 60% of consumption comes from transportation. The first contraction in demand was seen when China went into lockdown in January and expanded as the rest of the world followed suit in March. Current expectations call for a decline in April of up to 20 million barrels per day (mbbl/d) from initial world oil demand estimates of 101mbbl/d.

The known nature of the virus precludes a return to full normalcy when global lockdowns are expected to ease from mid-summer onwards. Combined with the unknown nature of the new normal as the world learns to deal with and ultimately contain the virus, the return to a pre-virus oil demand picture is unlikely within the next 12 months. But, in six to nine months demand for oil should recover from the extreme lows of April and trend upwards to a small drop from base-line demand by year end, as suggested by the chart below.

Global Oil Demand Impact from COVID-19

(Source: CNBC 26/03/2020 citing Goldman Sachs Investment Research, International Energy Agency, Bloomberg, Reuters, New York Times)

The supply-side of the equation is much harder to predict given the multitude of possibilities of producer reactions to low, yet extremely volatile oil prices in which a great deal of oil production becomes uneconomical. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that about 3.8-5.0mbbl/d of global production is uneconomical at $25-30/bbl prices for Brent crude. The industry has responded to the severe price drop by cutting expenses and in particular capital spending plans with the IEA reporting a range of 20-30% in cuts to initial plans for 2020. It would be reasonable to conclude that these and other actions would lead to the removal of about 2-5mbbl/d from an initial supply estimate of 102mbbl/d for 2020. But these will take a few months to alter the supply-demand imbalance and as such all the excess supply will end up in storage.

Global crude storage capacity will likely be maxed out in the next few weeks, currently estimated at 63% capacity with an effective full capacity at 80%, which will force additional significant production cuts above and beyond the above mentioned 2-5mbbl/d - this time by economically viable crude producers. This will likely accelerate, or pre-empt, the currently discussed plans for a new round of coordinated production cuts by OPEC+, or OPEC++ if other countries such as the U.S. join.

All of the above will likely mean that oil prices will remain under pressure for the next 9 to12 months, probably in a price range of $30-40/bbl for Brent crude. However, with a return to some sort of post-lockdown normalcy in early 2021, low oil prices should stimulate demand, and coupled with the massive worldwide fiscal stimuli to the global economy should begin to recover. Following a time-lag, as demand absorbs the stored supply, the supply-demand picture should be tilted in supply's favour, and oil prices will trend higher - likely to a price range of $45-55/bbl for Brent crude.

The outlook for Iraq, within this scenario, i.e. an average of $30-40/bbl for Brent crude over the next 12 months, is far from benign, but hardly bleak. As noted here in the past, the economic consequences from the continued political paralysis would be that no new budget will be passed, and thus the government will continue to implement the current spending parts of the 2019 budget. However, it will embark on dramatic cuts to investment spending plans and expenditures on goods and services, though it will maintain expenditures on salaries, pensions and social security. These measures could lead to annual expenditures of $69bn resulting in a cumulative 12-month budget deficit of $25bn-38bn. This can be comfortably funded by indirect monetary financing by the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), with its foreign currency reserves of $67bn as of the end of 2019.

Beyond the next 12 months, Brent crude prices in a range of $45-55/bbl will remove much of the pressure on government finances, but the exact timing of the post-lockdown return to normal with the new level of oil prices means that Iraq cannot avoid embarking on an accelerated and significant set of economic reforms, previously agreed to with the IMF in the 2016 Stand-By Agreement (SBA) but abandoned when oil prices recovered in 2018. However, with an increasingly alienated population these reforms would not come about without meaningful political reforms.

As a measure to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, the government announced a one-week nationwide curfew, starting on March 16^th that was extended twice to April 11^th. Trading on the Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX) was suspended in response to these instructions and the market, as measured by Rabee Securities RSISX USD Index (RSISUSD), ended the month down 7.1%.

The concentrated selling in the few foreign favoured stocks that began in January continued into March. However, as in February, the list narrowed further, and turnover declined. Given the uncertain global economic outlook, this selling could continue when the market resumes trading. Nevertheless, as Iraq's equity market was discounting neither an economic nor a corporate earnings recovery, it's difficult to see why it should decline as other markets have elsewhere. Most global markets have had multi-year bull markets and would need to discount vastly different economic assumptions than those that led to their multi-year rises. This explains the better action by the ISX compared to other markets during the recent sell-off - the decline, at least until March 16^th, was less than other markets as can be seen from the chart below and arguably makes the risk-reward profile more attractive for the ISX versus these markets as portfolio allocations are rebalanced in the light of the changed global environment.

Trailing 12-months normalized returns for the RSISUSD Index vs MSCI World Index, MSCI Emerging Markets Index and MSCI Frontier Markets Index.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Please click here to download Ahmed Tabaqchali's full report in pdf format.

Mr Tabaqchali (@AMTabaqchali) is the CIO of the AFC Iraq Fund, and is an experienced capital markets professional with over 25 years' experience in US and MENA markets. He is a non-resident Fellow at the Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS) at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS), and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at AUIS. He is a board member of the Credit Bank of Iraq.

His comments, opinions and analyses are personal views and are intended to be for informational purposes and general interest only and should not be construed as individual investment advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy, sell or hold any fund or security or to adopt any investment strategy. It does not constitute legal or tax or investment advice. The information provided in this material is compiled from sources that are believed to be reliable, but no guarantee is made of its correctness, is rendered as at publication date and may change without notice and it is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding Iraq, the region, market or investment.

By John Lee.

Iraqi President Barham Salih has named former governor of Najaf, Adnan al Zurfi (pictured), as Prime Minister Designate, asking him to form a new government within 30 days.

The 54-year-old is a member of the small Nasr parliamentary group, led by former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and was formerly a member of Dawa.

According to AFP, Zurfi fled to Saudi Arabia and then on to the United States following the failed 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein, returning to Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003.

He is reported to have dual US and Iraqi citizen, and his wife, five sons and two daughters still live in the US.

(Sources: Govt of Iraq, BBC, AFP, AP, eKurd)

By Joe Snell for Al Monitor. Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. 

New solar park to ease Iraqi governorate's power shortage

No one batted an eye when the power abruptly cut off in English teacher Miriam Zia's 11th-grade classroom at the Sardam International School in Duhok.

The cuts occur at least twice a day and are now "part of the fabric of our society," Zia told Al-Monitor.

To combat growing electricity concerns in the district, the Iraqi governorate of Duhok signed an agreement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) earlier this month to set up the district's first solar energy park.

The project comes amid pressure on Iraq to diversify its energy sources and lessen its dependence on Iran.

Click here to read the full story.

By Ahmed Tabaqchali, CIO of Asia Frontier Capital (AFC) Iraq Fund.

Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

The year for Iraq, and its equity market, started with two momentous events that raised the feared spectre of a US-Iran proxy war fought in the country and all of the instability that would come with it.

In quick succession, the US’s assassination in Baghdad of Iran’s top general was followed by the Iranian missile attacks on Iraqi military bases housing US military units. Initially the market shrugged them off, discounting the possibility of military conflict as unlikely, but by January’s end the market, as measured by the Rabee Securities RSISX USD Index (RSISUSD), was down –4.7%.

However, this decline masks two contradictory trends. The first of which was heavy selling in foreign favoured stocks, such as Baghdad Soft Drinks (IBSD), Asiacell (TASC), Bank of Baghdad (BBOB) and Mansour Bank (BMNS). This was most likely foreign selling, by either Iraq-focused equity funds or most probably by frontier market funds with small weights in Iraq, likely over concerns of potential political instability following the two momentous events.

These stocks were down between - 3% to - 10%. This trend was contrasted by heavy buying in local favoured small cap cyclical stocks that had a stunning rally by early January, but which cooled off by month end as foreign selling in IBSD, TASC, BBOB and BMNS picked up steam. But this was not before posting solid month end gains on the back of strong performances in 2019 as discussed in December 2019. Certain stocks in particular had impressive performances during the month as shown in the table below (figures rounded):

January performance of selected stocks: -

(Source: Iraq Stock Exchange, Asia Frontier Capital)

These conflicting trends are in-line with the 2019 themes as discussed in the “2019 Market Review and 2020 Outlook” in which the market’s bottoming action was seen through its improved dynamics throughout 2019. The first improved dynamic was its discriminating nature – in that negative developments in certain stocks were confined to these stocks and did not spread to others in the sector or to the overall market. While, the second improved market dynamic was the broadening of breadth, and in particular, the market’s focus on the hopes of an earnings recovery for some of the industrial stocks even before any signs of such recovery can be detected in their earnings reports during 2019.

The fears that prompted the heavy foreign selling might be justified on the grounds of instability arising from the current political chaos in Iraq and the spill-over effects of these on the Iraqi economy. The countrywide demonstrations continue unabated in the face of unprecedented violent state crackdowns, however, this youth-led protest movement continues to shape events in the country. Since October these ranged from forcing the political elite to implement reforms that would threaten their interests, to its influence on the choice of the current prime minister designate replacing the forced out prime minister. The prime minister designate faces considerable challenges in the short time that will require him to produce changes, satisfying the protest movement’s demands for change, while preserving the status quo for the political elite. In addition to balancing the conflicting demands of the protest movement and the political elite, he would need to navigate any potential re-escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran.

Yet, as these events are being played out, their effects – real and feared – can be seen in the action in the exchange rate of the Iraqi Dinar (IQD) vs the USD. The market price of the USD versus the IQD by month end returned to levels that prevailed over the last 20 months after spiking higher following the events at the start of the year. This is highlighted in the chart below.

(Source: Central Bank of Iraq, Iraqi Foreign Exchange Houses, Asia Frontier Capital)

Such spikes have happened before, during periods of geopolitical crisis in the summer of 2019 which included the tanker hits and the attacks on Saudi oil installations; and during local political crises such as the elections in May 2018, and more recently the nationwide demonstrations that started in October 2019. The current spike was probably a response to sharply increased local demands for physical USD notes as flight to safety prompted this demand. Cash transactions dominate activity in the local retail and trade markets where the IQD-USD exchange rate for physical USD notes trades at a slight premium to the market price (in red) in the above chart. This premium widened during the spikes in the market rate for USD but settled down to about an 8% premium versus the usual 2 - 4% premium. This wider premium likely reflects local traders’ hoarding of physical USD notes in preparation of a possible future, real or imagined, shortage – but these fears have moderated significantly from the start of the year.

While the FX market is suggesting that the disruptions to economic activity have subsided, other data is needed for a full evaluation of their effects. The first of this data would be broad money or M2, as a proxy for economic activity due to its sensitivity to oil revenues (chart below), in which the most recent data from the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) indicate continued growth.

(Source: Central Bank of Iraq, Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, Asia Frontier Capital)

(Note: M2 as of Oct. with AFC estimates for Nov. & Dec., Oil revenues as of Jan.)

Actual M2 data as of October shows robust growth with a year-over-year increase of +10.7%, while estimates show a moderation of year-over-year growth in December to less than half of that. However, it should be noted that December estimates are based on preliminary data on the deposit component of the monetary base M0 as of mid-January. These in turn show a decline from earlier figures, but there are not enough data to suggest if it’s the start of a declining trend or a normal seasonal decline. Combining the declining deposit component of M0 with the spike in the market exchange rate of the USD might be interpreted as capital flight. Yet the exchange rate as end of January suggests that it was a short-lived phenomenon. A more likely explanation than capital flight is the disruptions to economic activity, and in particular to the cash-dominated retail and trade markets, led to a decline in deposit formation as cash was used to fund operations.

While geopolitical and local political events are playing out, the equity market’s action, in particular its contrasting trends, in January supports the thesis that the stock market is bottoming following a multi-year bear market with back to back declines of –1.3% in 2019, of –15.0% in 2018, –11.8% in 2017, –17.3% in 2016, –22.7% in 2015, and –25.4% in 2014.

Please click here to download Ahmed Tabaqchali’s full report in pdf format.

Mr Tabaqchali (@AMTabaqchali) is the CIO of the AFC Iraq Fund, and is an experienced capital markets professional with over 25 years’ experience in US and MENA markets. He is a non-resident Fellow at the Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS) at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS), and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at AUIS. He is a board member of the Credit Bank of Iraq.

His comments, opinions and analyses are personal views and are intended to be for informational purposes and general interest only and should not be construed as individual investment advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy, sell or hold any fund or security or to adopt any investment strategy. It does not constitute legal or tax or investment advice. The information provided in this material is compiled from sources that are believed to be reliable, but no guarantee is made of its correctness, is rendered as at publication date and may change without notice and it is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding Iraq, the region, market or investment.

Qatar Airways, Emirates and several other Persian Gulf airlines still fly in Iranian and Iraqi airspace and to cities in both countries since Iran and the United States traded military strikes.

“Iranian airspace is important for all carriers in this region,” said Adil al-Ghaith, Emirates’ senior vice president, commercial operations, Persian Gulf, Middle East and Iran, Reuters reported.

Dubai-based Emirates and sister carrier flyDubai together serve 10 cities in Iran and Iraq, and have continued to use the airspace of both countries for other flights.

Kuwait Airways and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways have also continued using Iranian and Iraqi airspace.

“We will continue to fly to Iran because Iran is an important country to us and it is our neighbor and we want to serve the people of Iran,” Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker said on the sidelines of a Kuwait air show.

However, some regional carriers have changed their routes. Bahrain’s Gulf Air has redirected European flights away from Iraqi airspace and now flies longer, more fuel consuming routes over Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

“We want to take the safest option even if it costs us a little bit more for a period of time. We can live with that,” Deputy Chief Executive Waleed Abdulhameed al-Alawi said.

The UAE regulator told its carriers — Emirates, Etihad, flydubai and Air Arabia AIRA.DU — this month to “evaluate flight path risks” although it said it was up to the airlines to make the final decision on the routes they chose.

(Source: Tasnim, under Creative Commons licence)