These additional reflections are prompted the article of Dr. Amer Hirmis entitled “World Bank’s Assessment Is Flawed: Manufacturing Is Viable in Iraq… Preliminary Brief Comments!” (Hirmis, 2021), which provided critical assessment and comments and challenged some of the analyses and recommendations provided in a recent WBG document entitled “Breaking Out of Fragility A Country
Read More
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Iraqi agriculture sector employs roughly 20 percent of the country’s workforce and is the second largest contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP) after the oil sector, accounting for 5 percent of the GDP. Thus, agriculture development is critical to allow Iraq to achieve their vision of a more diversified economy, in addition to generating employ
Read More
To the editors of the ‘Iraqi Economists Network’ (IEN) At the outset, my thanks go to the editors of the IEN and also to the World Bank’s ‘Country Economic Memorandum Team’ (WB-Team) for their interest in my article posted at the IEN website in early March (http://iraqieconomists.net/en/2021/03/08/world-banks-assessment-is-flawed-manufacturing-is-viable-in-iraq-pre
Read More
The climate of Iraq is of the subtropical semi-dry type; however, the country was rich in water resources until a few decades ago. The climate change, the construction of many dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the neighboring countries, wasting water, and mismanagement caused water shortages. Now, there is a need to decrease consumption, good management of water resour
Read More
The 2020 OPEC World Oil Outlook (WOO) was launched today in Vienna, Austria, providing the OPEC Secretariat’s in-depth look at the unprecedented scale and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global energy and oil markets, an assessment of the medium- and long-term prospects, as well as analysis of various alternative scenarios and sensitivities that have the potential to imp
Read More