The Iraq Economic Monitor provides an update on key economic developments and policies over the previous six months and presents findings from recent World Bank work on Iraq, placing them in a longer-term and global context and assessing the implications of these developments and other changes in policy regarding the outlook for Iraq. Its coverage ranges from the macro-economy
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Fixing the country’s chronic political dysfunction can only begin with new elections. After the third try in less than six months, Iraq’s parliament has finally approved a new prime minister: Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, the former intelligence chief. He deserves our commiserations for being burdened with the Middle East’s most impossible task. Since Kadhimi has no chance of succe
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As Iraq inches toward the formation of a new government, the risks are stacking up for OPEC’s second-biggest crude producer. Beyond the country’s long-standing sectarian tensions, frayed relations with the Kurdish north, a bloated public wage bill and endemic corruption, new Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi now has to grapple with a collapse in oil revenue and the fallout f
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(1) The link below is for World Bank’s World Commodity Market Outlook April 2020. It was released on May 1. https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/commodity-markets (2) Its sections on energy, and oil in particular, including Box 1, pp 24-30, are very much worth reading. (3) It expects a price for oil (average of Brent, Dubai, and WTI) of $35/B for 2020 to rise to $42/B
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Summary: Iraq has implemented measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19, but confusing messages and political opportunism are hobbling an effective response. Iraq is one of the Arab countries hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic but like others it has been accused of hiding the full scale of the problem. Last Thursday Reuters reported that the country was suffe
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