Government Adviser: Iraq’s foreign debt amounts to 20 billion dollars
Government Adviser: Iraq’s foreign debt amounts to 20 billion dollars
2023-02-26 01:30
Shafaq News/ The Iraqi government revealed, on Sunday, that Iraq’s foreign debts amount to about 20 billion dollars, indicating that these debts will be paid within the next 7 or 8 years.
The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, said in an interview with Shafaq News agency; That “Iraq’s debts in the Paris Club, which dated back to the nineties of the last century, were presented in different numbers, ranging from 128 to 148 billion dollars, which are preliminary figures and exaggerated by some countries that added delayed interest, which does not exist.”
He continued, “The Paris Club deducted, according to an agreement with Iraq in November 2004, these sovereign and commercial debts to 80% or more, and the cancellation of some countries reached 100%, including the United States, Algeria, Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia.”
He added, “The remaining 20% has been scheduled for a period of 20 years and is scheduled to expire in 2028, and the remaining about 5 billion dollars, including commercial debts that were issued in the form of bonds in the name of Iraq.”
He pointed out that “Iraq also borrowed again during the days of the war on ISIS from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund with the issuance of two new bonds in the amount of two billion dollars, one known as (Tigris) and the other (Euphrates), and therefore, in my estimation, the total debts that will be paid from now within seven Or the next eight years, it is about $20 billion, which is Iraq’s total foreign debt.”
Iraq is seeking to cancel its debts incurred during the rule of the former regime, Saddam Hussein, amounting to more than 140 billion dollars, some of which are due as compensation due to the wars it waged against its neighbors, and others as commercial debts.
And Iraq had managed to write off 100 billion dollars of the Paris Club debts amounting to 140 billion dollars after Iraq unilaterally signed with these countries an agreement to reduce debts towards Iraq by 80% of it, while some countries from the Paris Club signed an agreement with Iraq to write off 100 % of its debt to Iraq.
The Paris Economic Club is an informal group of financiers from 19 of the richest countries in the world, which provides financial services such as debt rescheduling, debt relief, and debt cancellation for debtor and creditor countries. The International Monetary Fund determines the names of those countries after they are alternative solutions. have failed.
shafaq.com
