ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — After nearly three years of financial instability and heartbreaking drama, the Kurdish economy is likely to regenerate jobs in 2017 as the recovery plan nears completion, according to the Acting Finance Minister Rabar Sidiq.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is expected to inject large sums of net cash into the market in the coming months to ease the severe credit squeeze in the country that was exacerbated by the financial crisis of 2014.
“The economic conditions in Kurdistan Region are improving, although slowly. The improvement is step-by-step, but the situation will be better than in 2016. The precondition is that Kurdistan and the region remain calm and the refugees return to their areas,” Sidiq told Rudaw on Wednesday.
The KRG is currently paying back several billion-dollar loans to Kurdish private banks, which the government had borrowed to pay salaries to state employees over the past three years, according to the minister.
Sidiq also said that the government will make cash payments to revive large government projects that had been halted due to the fiscal crunch since 2014 when oil prices plummeted and ISIS waged war in the country.
“The contractors whose compensations have been delayed will receive $10 million from oil revenues and to restore trust in the private banks they will take some of the net cash injection,” Sidiq added.
KRG’s student sponsorship plan, the Empowerment Program, will also be allocated $30 million to pay outstanding sums to colleges and universities abroad where Kurdish graduates are enrolled.
The KRG’s annual deficit narrowed in 2016, hovering near its lowest level in 4 years, official government reports have shown.
According to the data, the KRG has had an annual budget nearing $5.4 billion in 2016, about 80 percent of which is from oil revenues, while its spending has hovered over $5.5 billion, down from around $10 billion in 2013.
Stripped of its $1 billion monthly budget by the central government in Baghdad since February 2014, the KRG has struggled to finance its near lavish spending on government employees whose number is estimated at above 1.3 million people.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is expected to inject large sums of net cash into the market in the coming months to ease the severe credit squeeze in the country that was exacerbated by the financial crisis of 2014.
“The economic conditions in Kurdistan Region are improving, although slowly. The improvement is step-by-step, but the situation will be better than in 2016. The precondition is that Kurdistan and the region remain calm and the refugees return to their areas,” Sidiq told Rudaw on Wednesday.
The KRG is currently paying back several billion-dollar loans to Kurdish private banks, which the government had borrowed to pay salaries to state employees over the past three years, according to the minister.
Sidiq also said that the government will make cash payments to revive large government projects that had been halted due to the fiscal crunch since 2014 when oil prices plummeted and ISIS waged war in the country.
“The contractors whose compensations have been delayed will receive $10 million from oil revenues and to restore trust in the private banks they will take some of the net cash injection,” Sidiq added.
KRG’s student sponsorship plan, the Empowerment Program, will also be allocated $30 million to pay outstanding sums to colleges and universities abroad where Kurdish graduates are enrolled.
The KRG’s annual deficit narrowed in 2016, hovering near its lowest level in 4 years, official government reports have shown.
According to the data, the KRG has had an annual budget nearing $5.4 billion in 2016, about 80 percent of which is from oil revenues, while its spending has hovered over $5.5 billion, down from around $10 billion in 2013.
Stripped of its $1 billion monthly budget by the central government in Baghdad since February 2014, the KRG has struggled to finance its near lavish spending on government employees whose number is estimated at above 1.3 million people.
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