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Iraqi Parliament Approves 2017 Budget | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Iraqi parliament session. (Photo: Reuters)


Baghdad, London – Iraq’s parliament approved the 2017 budget on Wednesday, lawmakers said, with total of $68 billion basing an oil price of $42 per barrel and exports of 3.75 million barrels per day (bpd), including 250,000 bpd from oilfields in the Kurdish controlled region.

The deficit was forecast at $19 billion, with expenditure of 100.7 trillion dinars, about 6 percent lower than this year’s projected spending.

Speaker Salim al-Jabbouri announced after the session, which was attended by 186 MP out of 328, the approval of the budget.

Earlier this week, the parliament had postponed voting on the budget due to disagreements on several segments, but MP Hisham al-Suhail told AFP that the budget received approval after agreeing on all points.

Parliament also approved a 17 percent payment from the national budget’s total expenditures to Kurdistan’s regional government.

The budget also focused on diversifying sources of national income which depends mainly on oil revenue, as well as allocating money to support the needs of displaced people and to reconstruct their areas, recently freed from extremist ISIS militants.

The budget also allocated money for salaries of state workers and Peshmerga fighters in the Kurdish region.
According to Iraqi law, the annual budget must be approved by the Iraqi presidency following parliamentary approval.

Iraqi economy relies on oil for over 90 percent of its revenues, and thus the country’s economy is suffering due to the reduction in oil prices in addition to expenditures on war against ISIS.