Iraq adopts two oil prices in the public financial budget

Shafaq News / Two oil prices, one for fixed operation and the other for investment will be adopted in the financial budget for the current year, the parliamentary Finance Committee revealed on Sunday.

"There will be an expected meeting of the government headed by Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to discuss the draft budget law for 2020," the committee’s rapporteur, Ahmed Al-Saffar told Shafaq News Agency, indicating that it will be sent to parliament in the coming weeks.

"The budget will be approved when it reaches parliament," noting that "the general budget will be private and semi-annual in light of the health conditions and the economic crisis."

"The budget will secure the salaries of employees, the health and security situation, the ration card and preparing for early elections," noting that "oil prices have reached 38 dollars per barrel, so it is expected that the general budget to be based on two oil prices, one of which is fixed for the operational budget and the other will differs for the investment budget for the remainder of the year.

The delay in sending the federal budget by the government to the Iraqi parliament was due to the continuous protests since last October, which led to the resignation of the previous government headed by Adel Abdel-Mahdi and its transformation into a caretaker government that is not within its powers to send the draft budget to parliament.

The current year’s budget -according to the government’s proposed project- is 162 trillion dinars (135 billion dollars), with a planned financial deficit of 48 trillion dinars (40 billion dollars), including three trillion dinars (2.5 billion dollars) to implement the projects agreed with China.