Wednesday News Summaries & Commentaries by Aggiedad77 - 9 September 2015

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Wednesday News Summaries & Commentaries by Aggiedad77 - 
9 September 2015

aggiedad77 @ KTFA >> September 9th, 2015, 

Wednesday News Summaries and Commentaries

Very interesting news we have this morning......regarding the two largest state banks in Iraq......more on the bonds but no dates yet......woohoo we have the second reading of the Anti-Money Laundering Law.....now for the vote....let's have a vote.....for sure that is the thing to do....let's vote on this....all in favor say AYE.

Governor of the Central Bank: The government is seeking to privatize the Rafidain and Rasheed

I don't know why but some of these actions that the Iraqis are proposing remind me of an old WWII movie where men in an airplane are having to dump as much weight as possible to clear an upcoming mountain range, don't even know the name of the movie, maybe it is just a dream in my mind....
....
Anyway....the CBI is now looking at dumping the Rafidain and Rasheed banks, the two largest state banks within Iraq, turning them into private banks.....basically making them available for ownership by international banking entities if anyone is interested.....

The acting governor of the CBI was the one who brought this subject up today.....he also talked about the pending bond issues saying that they are expecting at least 8% interest due to security issues.....the two state banks handle 80-90% of the work of the banking sector....what the acting governor is suggesting would entail a complete reworking of the Iraqi banking system.

House of Representatives completed the second reading of the law of money laundering

Well they pulled up their big boy and girl shorts and got something worthwhile accomplished today....Parliament that is....they got through the second reading of the Anti-Money Laundering Law......good for them.....now let's just find the time to take a vote.....hopefully there were not too many revisions that must be made to what is written.....Iraq needs to pass this law by the end of the month to stay off the black list of countries that do not have good control over money laundering activities.

Iraq used international bonds to finance the salaries and infrastructure

Iraq is showing some of its hand early it seems.....at least with some of their intentions for the bond money they hope to generate.....paying salaries and providing for infrastructure that relates to oil and gas projects as well as the electricity and transportation sectors.....again they reiterate that Thursday will start their "promotional tour" for the bonds....no mention of a date for when they go on sale.....sources still say the first batch of bonds will be significantly smaller than the whole $6 billion....so maybe to just test the waters.

The Ministry of Finance is working on the preparation of 2016 budget in four months

I must admit that I hate budget time, sometimes it is nothing more than a guessing game as to what upper management wants and expects.....throw the numbers up in the air and see where they fall on the excel spreadsheet......

At times I suspect that Iraq's efforts towards their budget process is much the same. They are no different than most major corporations or companies, spending a number of months dedicated to what next years budget is supposed to look like and it all ends in a flurry of last minute number crunching before the 11th hour to make things make sense as you prepare to walk into the new year.

So goes the saga for yet another year.....this time around again they spin the bottle looking for a price for a barrel of oil and that bet is anyone's guess. Unfortunately oil is still king in Iraq but the crown is getting tarnished by the slump in pricing....take your best shot and be ready to make last minute adjustments.

Parliamentary debate outweigh the financial year 2016 budget in the Council of Ministers next week

Upcoming budget schedule......budget to the COM next week.....then the budget needs to be with the Finance Committee in Parliament by the 10th of next month.....we will keep watch on how that works for them....austerity still rules for the time being for them, military spending will lead the charge yet again for Iraq.

The Iraqi government is implementing fiscal reform plan

Well we heard that more reforms were on the way....it seems that PM Abadi has struck close to home with this round of reforms aimed at stopping pensions and cutting back on allocations of existing government officials....this hits the big boys and the minor league players in Parliament as well....sweeping cuts and freezes in the pocketbook meant to take effect this month and apparently with deep enough cuts to make a difference some feel.....yes indeed austere measures on display here today.

Will stop here for now, I have some errands that I need to run.....back this afternoon for more as it becomes available to us.

 

 Aloha   Randy