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Iraqi parliament approves 2015 draft budget

Xinhua, January 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

Iraqi lawmakers on Thursday endorsed a bill of the country's 2015 federal budget with about 100 billion U.S. dollars and a deficit of about 21 billion dollars, the official Iraqi television reported.

The budget was based on an average oil price of 56 dollars per barrel and export of 3.3 million barrels of crude oil per day (bpd), including 550,000 bpd exported from the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The draft budget projected the 56 dollars per barrel despite the fact the crude oil price in the world markets is lower, because the lawmakers hoped that an increase in the oil prices could be possible later in the year.

The approval of the budget was faster than the previous annual budgets since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, as the political factions managed to solve their disputes, reflecting the ease in tensions among the political rivals as the country is facing the threat of Islamic State (IS) militants who seized large parts of the country since June last year.

The lawmakers also approved the allocations of salaries for the controversial national guards who are supposed to be recruited from the Sunni provinces and the Shiite militias to fight the IS militant.

Late in December, the Iraqi cabinet approved 2015 budget basing on an average oil price of 60 dollars due to the decrease of crude oil prices in the world markets, but the oil prices declined more.

The government said that it has specified several means to cover the deficit, including domestic borrowing and imposing some fees on certain economic activities.

Iraq's economy depends on oil revenues for nearly 95 percent of its budget, and its oil ministry said earlier that it is working to increase the country's oil production from about three million bpd to more than 3.8 million during 2015. Such an increase was supposed to be one of the plans to cover the deficit of the budget.

The fast approval of the budget is seen as a positive accomplishment for Haider al-Abadi's government as the previous cabinet under the former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki failed to approve the 2014 budget due to political wrangling.

The Iraqi budget of 2013 valued 118 billion dollars based on the average oil price of 90 dollars per barrel and 2.9 million bpd in crude exports.

According to Iraqi law, the annual budget must be approved by the Iraqi presidency council after being approved by the parliament.

In 2010, Iraq announced that its proven oil reserves had increased to 143.1 billion barrels from the previous estimation of 115 billion barrels. Endit