Al-Furat Center Discusses Economic Recession in Iraq

Al-Furat Center for Strategic Studies specified its recent discussion panel to the topic of economic recession and the hard choices ahead. The discussion panel addressed the current economic situation of Iraq, in which the country’s budget is heavily reliant on its oil revenues. Despite the accord to reduce oil production at OPEC, the steady decline in demand, which is in due course an outcome of the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically shrunken the economies that are reliant on oil sales. In this meeting, Dr. Amer Al-Mamouri, the head of Economic Studies of Karbala University stated: “We need to assess the growth of our economy in the past 17 years; the Iraqi officials have failed to stabilize the country’s economy, because of the deepening crises that we have faced in these years. Billions of dollars have gone to waste, while we could use the money to revolutionize the economy of our country.”

He then added: “As long as our economy is reliant on one revenue, we will not have a stable economy. It is a very basic idea, that we cannot put all our eggs in one basket, particularly in such macro scales. We have every right to ask the officials about their plans and strategies to revive our economy. We need to take lessons from the failed plans in the past, and implement these lessons in our future strategies.”