Publication: Iraq Economic Monitor, Spring 2022: Harnessing the Oil Windfall for Sustainable Growth
Date
2022-06-01
ISSN
Published
2022-06-01
Author(s)
World Bank
Abstract
Iraq’s economy is gradually emerging
from the deep recession caused by the pandemic and the
plunge in oil prices in 2020. Higher oil revenues pushed
Iraq’s overall fiscal and external balances into a surplus
in 2021. The turnaround in oil markets has significantly
improved Iraq’s economic outlook in the medium term. Iraq’s
fiscal and socio-economic fragilities underscore the urgency
of wide-ranging structural reforms by the new government.
Iraq’s existing food security challenges have intensified
with the recent surge in global commodity prices. To plug
the food supply gap, Iraq has become increasing reliant on
imports for more than half of its food consumption, which
has increased the country’s exposure to global food price
and supply shocks. Subsidies and direct transfers, including
recently new measures announced by Government of Iraq (GoI),
partly mitigate the impact of rising global prices in the
short term. However, achieving food security calls for
coordinated efforts to improve domestic production including
through raising the efficiency of irrigation water, reducing
and rehabilitating soil degradation, improving land
management, and implementing climate change adaptation and
mitigation measures including the adoption of climate-smart agriculture.
Citation
“World Bank. 2022. Iraq Economic Monitor, Spring 2022 : Harnessing the Oil Windfall for Sustainable Growth. Iraq Economic Monitor;Spring 2022. © Washington, DC: World Bank. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/37565 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”