Publication: Iraq Economic Monitor, Spring/Summer 2023 - Reemerging Pressures: Iraq’s Recovery at Risk (With a Special Focus on Financial Intermediation in Iraq)
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2023-07-31
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2023-07-28
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Iraq’s economy continued its recovery after the sharp, pandemic-induced recession in 2020 but growth constraints in the oil sector have reemerged. After moderating in 2022, consumer price inflation ticked up in early 2023, fueled by the depreciation of the Iraqi dinar in the parallel market. Fiscal and external account balances benefitted from the oil windfall in 2022 but this trend significantly moderated in early 2023. The new budget is excessively expansionary, and lacks the structural reforms that Iraq needs to develop a vibrant and sustainable economy. The economic outlook remains subject to significant risks, largely due to deep structural challenges. Urgent implementation of financial sector reforms and modernization of its banking sector architecture, currently major barriers to economic diversification, are a critical condition to bolster the private sector and unlock much-needed job creation. Financial access in Iraq is amongst the lowest in the world, with only 19 percent of adults owning a bank account, highlighting a significant underutilized source of financing. Crucially, lack of financing remains the top constraints for small and medium enterprises and firms operating in the informal sector, undermining private sector-led growth and job creation. As this report’s Special Focus highlights, this is in part due to the banking sector structure and operations, which is dominated by undercapitalized state-owned banks with weak institutional capacities that primarily provide financing to public sector entities and state-owned enterprises. The private commercial banking sector is weak and has limited capacity to support financial intermediation and is geared towards maximizing revenues from the foreign exchange auctions. Furthermore, the non-banking financial sector is nascent with small and underdeveloped capital markets, unregulated Micro Finance Institutions, and an underdeveloped insurance sector. To tackle these challenges, the sector’s reform priorities include institutional reforms in state-owned banks and incentivizing digital financial services to increase financial intermediation and promote financial inclusion in Iraq. The full implementation of these reforms can help restore public confidence in the financial sector and help mobilize Iraq’s wealth towards solving the pressing development challenges of the country.
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“World Bank. 2023. Iraq Economic Monitor, Spring/Summer 2023 - Reemerging Pressures: Iraq’s Recovery at Risk (With a Special Focus on Financial Intermediation in Iraq). © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40103 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Iraq Economic Monitor, Spring 2020(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05-04)Iraq, once again, is facing a combination of acute shocks which the country is ill-prepared tomanage. The collapse in oil prices has considerably reduced budgetary revenues and reversed the fiscal surpluses accumulated since 2018. COVID-19, and the lockdown measures needed to contain the pandemic have dealt a severe blow to economic activities especially the services sectors like transport, trade, banking and religious tourism, which constitute around half of the non-oil economy. The growing discontent over poor service delivery, rising corruption, and lack of jobs persists and is coupled with political impasse over the formation of a new government. Iraq's pre-existing conditions going into this crisis limit its ability to manage and mitigate the socio-economic impact. A large dependency on oil revenues coupled with built-up budget rigiditieslimit Iraq's fiscal space to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and offer a stimulus package to re-start the economy. An undiversified economy, highly dependent on oil outcomes, as well as large presence of the state in economic and commercial activities, make it hard to create the needed private sector jobs for a predominantly young population. Furthermore, rampant corruption and weak governance and service delivery fueled large scale protests across the country calling for better public service delivery and jobs. As a result, all signs indicate that this multifaceted crisis will have a protracted impact. The outlook for Iraq, which was already negative prior to the COVID-19 shock, has markedly worsened since. Near-term economic growth will be subdued by low oil prices, a new OPEC agreement that has reduced oil production quotas, and unfavorable global and domestic conditions including disruptions from COVID-19 spread. As a result, the economy is projected to contract by 9.7 percent in 2020, down from a real GDP growth of 4.4 percent in 2019, with both oil and non-oil sectors contracting by 13 and 4.4 percent respectively. This special focus on digital economy (DE) highlights the importance of digital transformation for Iraq and the urgency behind it. Iraq's economic condition was gradually improving following the deep economic strains of the last three years. However, the recent protests and unrest highlight the continued fragility of the country and the high priority of improving economic opportunities, particularly for youth. 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Whether or not these trends will be reversed as the management of the COVID-19 pandemic is normalized and the economy recovers from the crisis remains an important policy question.Publication Iraq Economic Monitor, Spring 2018(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-04)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 to financial markets to indicators of human welfare and development. Iraq is slowly emerging from the deep economic strains of the last three years, but progress in addressing the legacy of the war against ISIS and the accumulated development deficit from decades of conflict needs to be accelerated. Following the complete liberation from ISIS of all Iraq territory in December 2017, the Government of Iraq (GoI) is putting in place a comprehensive reconstruction package linking immediate stabilization to a long-term vision. The conflict with ISIS and widespread insecurity have created a major humanitarian and economic crisis. Iraq’s growth outlook is expected to improve thanks to a more favorable security environment and gradual pick up of investment for reconstruction, but absent structural reforms, higher growth would be short-lived. The outlook is also subject to significant social and political risks. Lingering political tensions, weak administrative capacity and widespread corruption continue to pose a downside risk and could further limit the government’s reform effort and its capacity to implement investment for reconstruction.Publication Tunisia Economic Monitor, Summer 2020(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)The Tunisia Economic Monitor provides an update on key economic developments and policies. It examines these economic developments and policies in a longer-term and global context and assesses their implications for the outlook for the country. There are two special focus sections in this edition of the Tunisia Economic Monitor. The first discusses the macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic on the Tunisian economy and the second presents findings from a diagnostic of Tunisia’s infrastructure sectors (transport, electricity, water and sanitation, and information and communication technology) carried out by the World Bank in collaboration with the Government of Tunisia.
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