The Central Bank of Iraq announced Sunday that Iraq will not be included in the British classification of high-risk countries.
In a statement, the bank said: "In the framework of the efforts of the Central Bank of Iraq and through the Office of Combating Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism in developing the business environment within the international compliance standards for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, the British Treasury has established the United Kingdom Government Department will not to include the name of the Republic of Iraq among the lists of high-risk countries.”
“The United Kingdom has adopted the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in classifying countries with high risks in terms of applying anti-money laundering and terrorist financing standards, after its exit from the European Union countries, and it promised Iraq is committed to keeping pace with the international recommendation,” the statement read.
The bank noted that this reflects positively on facilitating business and entering companies between the two countries.
Separately, Iraq’s total foreign reserves reached $56 billion, a drop of 20 percent from 2020.
Domestic debt in Iraq reached 63,500 trillion dinars. The budget in 2021 reached around $89.7 billion, 30 percent lower than the 2019 budget.
The total value of revenues in the 2021 budget reached around $69.9 billion. The budget showed that 80 percent of the revenues come from oil.
The poverty rate in the country doubled in 2020, with 40 percent of the population considered poor according to the World Bank.
