The Iraqi parliament approves the borrowing law

The Iraqi parliament approved, on Wednesday, the law draft that allows the government to resort to internal and external borrowing to cover the country’s fiscal deficit.

A parliamentary source said that the majority of the parliament voted, during the session, in the presence of 168 MPs (out of 329), to pass a draft law submitted by the government regarding internal and external borrowing.

The government has submitted the law draft that includes an amount $ 5 billion of external borrowing, and 15 trillion dinars of internal borrowing to address the financial deficit in the country.

The Iraqi government is struggling to secure employee salaries and other operating expenses due to the collapse in oil prices, which has paralyzed large sectors of the world economy. The country relies on the revenues from the sale of crude oil to finance 95% of the country’s expenditures.

It is expected that the Iraqi economy will face a 10% of contraction.