SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Calls for economic reform and diversification were clear at a forum in Sulaimani as ways to ease Iraq’s grinding financial crisis, a situation top officials were ready to admit. “We have a financial crisis due to drop of oil prices and the high cost of security issues,” said Hoshyar Zebari, Iraqi finance minister, in the closing panel discussion of the two-day event on Wednesday presented by the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. Zebari went on to describe the “struggles” of the central government paying ministry budgets and state salaries. Rebaz Muhammed Hamlan, minister of finance for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), echoed those remarks while offering an alternative. “We are facing financial crisis and we need financial reform. We should diversify our resources,” said Hamlan, referring to Iraq’s high dependence on oil exports. Many experts in the panel lamented the long-standing lack of binding legislation on the energy sector, notably an agreement between Erbil and Baghdad on how to share oil revenue. “There was two stages: first, building trust in terms of oil production and, second was the budget agreement which we have done with the KRG. But we have some problems in the implementation and interpretation of the agreement. In addition the core problem, is the absence of an oil and hydro-carbons law,” said Iraqi Minister of Oil Adil Abdul Mahdi. Several exchanges were terse between Baghdad officials and their KRG counterparts. “We realize the importance of Kurdistan for Iraq, and they should realize the importance of Iraq for them,” said Abdul Mahdi. Despite the bleak assessments of the current economy, US Ambassador Stuart Jones said he was bullish on opportunities in the post-ISIS era. “Daesh [an Arabic acronym for ISIS] is on the run across the country and had been reduced to IEDs and snipers. It’s on its heels and is going to be defeated. It’s time to think about the times to come once this happens,” said Jones. The ambassador said the US approach to the Iraqi economy were summed up in three words: reconstruction, reform and reconciliation. He urged the Iraqi government to open up the private sector, increase investment opportunity, and increase transparency. “America very much wants to be an economic partner with Iraq,” Jones said. “You've seen what a security partner we can be in the past months and that’s nothing in terms of the potential jobs and development,” he concluded.
