The budget deficit can be covered if non-oil revenues reach 90-100%, official says

Shafaq News/ Mazhar Muhammad Salih, the financial and economic advisor to the caretaker prime minister, said that the budget deficit for the current year might be covered if the oil prices increase.

Salih told Shafaq News Agency, "The rise in oil prices will contribute to covering the current budget deficit of 29 trillion dinars by 100%, provided that the non-oil revenues achieve a ratio of approximately 90-100% and not 30% as it is expected."

"There are two other factors to the difficult Iraqi economic situation, which are the modest annual economic growth 1%, which is less than the population growth rate of 2.6%."

Salih added, "this reflects the high levels of unemployment among youth, which reached about 23%, in addition to the increasing levels of poverty that affects about 40% of the country's population."

He added, "This is accompanied by an annual inflation that increased, at the beginning of the current year, from 1% to about 9.5-10% annually."

Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in OPEC after Saudi Arabia, with a production rate of about 4.5 million barrels per day, of which the country exports about 3.5 million barrels every day.

The country relies on oil sales revenues to cover up to 95% of state expenditures, which makes the country's rentier economy highly affected by the rise or drop of crude prices in global markets.