Border Ports Authority: Our revenues have exceeded 2 trillion dinars for the first time since 2003
Border Ports Authority: Our revenues have exceeded 2 trillion dinars for the first time since 2003
2025-11-02
The Border Ports Authority announced on Sunday that revenues exceeded 2 trillion dinars for the first time since 2003. A statement from the Authority indicated that “the Iraqi government, represented by the Border Ports Authority, noted that the electronic and monitoring procedures adopted by the government and implemented according to well-studied timelines and strict monitoring by the Border Ports Authority staff have resulted in an unprecedented increase in the volume of revenues collected during the period from 2023 to the current year 2025. These revenues witnessed a qualitative growth that is the largest since 2003, as a result of implementing a package of reforms, preventive and precautionary electronic measures, as well as customs controls adopted by the government during the past two years.”
The statement also clarified that “customs revenues during the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 stabilized at an average of nearly one trillion dinars annually, with a decrease recorded in 2022. However, the years (2023-2024-2025) constituted a pivotal turning point, after the Border Ports Authority succeeded, based on strict procedures in monitoring, electronic auditing and remote sonar image analysis, in ensuring the collection of actual customs duties, which led to doubling the revenues to exceed the barrier of (2 trillion and 100 billion dinars) in the first ten months of 2025, which clearly reflects the direct impact of government measures in controlling border ports, reducing financial leakage and improving the collection process, and it is the highest figure recorded by the state in this sector since 2003, even though the fiscal year has not yet been completed.”
He added that “government estimates indicated that revenues by the end of the year may range between (2.5 to 2.7 trillion dinars), which confirms that the increase was not circumstantial, but rather the result of ongoing structural reforms.”
He also noted that “these results were achieved thanks to a set of measures, including strengthening control and electronic governance at border crossings, expanding security and financial coordination to reduce smuggling operations, reducing exceptions not based on the law, starting the stages of automation and electronic linking, in addition to controlling and monitoring the processes of estimation, inspection, financial transfers and auditing of tax receipts, and adopting realistic and direct collection policies instead of the previous paper settlements.”
He added that “the Authority has begun monitoring and following up on the financial transfer operations of commercial companies in coordination with the competent governmental and judicial authorities, which resulted in taking the necessary legal measures against violators and recovering the funds.”
The statement also noted that “in the context of collecting tax fees and following up on commercial companies paying their outstanding tax fees and deposits, and based on the professional audits carried out by the Authority’s staff, tax fees were recovered and collected for many companies that failed to complete their tax clearance due to non-payment within the specified legal ceiling, which led to the issuance of arrest warrants for hundreds of companies and their authorized managers, which had a positive impact on these companies paying their outstanding tax amounts, and this clearly demonstrates the great interest of the government in extending its control over tax revenues.”
He explained that “this improvement in collecting customs and tax revenues and controlling financial transfers is not limited to being a financial indicator, but represents a strategic achievement that enhances the state’s non-oil resources, supports Iraq’s ability to improve its financial security in front of international institutions, and contributes to strengthening the credit rating file and the state’s general financial policy. This development is also consistent with the government program that made maximizing non-oil revenues one of the pillars of economic reform.”
In the same regard, the Prime Minister directed the completion of the comprehensive automation project for customs during the year 2026, similar to the electronic procedures and networking adopted by the Border Ports Authority, in order to prepare a national plan to raise revenues to higher levels during the coming years, and to submit a comprehensive report to the Council of Ministers during the coming period that includes the regulatory and legislative procedures required to be completed to ensure the sustainability of the achieved improvement.
The government, according to the statement, affirmed that “what has been achieved represents a first step in a long process of rebuilding the state’s financial systems, and that the current success clearly reflects that reform is possible and achievable when there is political will, government oversight, and disciplined administrative implementation.”
burathanews.com
