_RFJ

They're talking about the street rate which, since the closing of the auctions, has been running around .1340 +/- a few. They are not talking about the international rate of exchange here at all. Also the IMF, World Bank, UN, etc. have little to do with when Iraq will or won't RV and how much they will RV to. Balls in Iraq's court, nowhere else.

This is not the HCL. When the Hydrocarbon Law is passed it'll be major news on all outlets in the mainstream media. As others have said all this refers to is the Oil Agreement as being written into law with the passing of this years budget. The HCL represents something that once passed won't need to be discussed on an annual basis which at present is all they have now. An agreement of 17%, for the year 2015, nothing more nothing less, and not an HCL.

Permission to take a stab at this one? Thanks! The HCL, 140, Amnesty, Law of Accountability & Justice, Federal Court Act, or any of the other hot button laws you want to mention, I don't believe any of them are required to RV per se. What they are required for is stability. Prior to taking office Abadi agreed to a 21 line item list of demands presented by the Kurds and the Sunni. Many of the aforementioned items are found in said agreements plus more. None of that other stuff is required to RV either but the threat of a walkout will always be present less said agreements are written into law. The guy with his finger on the big red RV button isn't going to even think about pressing it until these issues are solved because a post RV economy relies on a government that functions and a functioning government relies on unification. Unification relies on all factions being represented and included in the government. It is that which our RV relies upon not the passing of an HCL.

What they are doing is moving the functionallity of the sale of foreign currency from the auction point to inside the bank. Sale of foreign currency meaning large sums of USD to smaller banks and money changsrs. This makes the tracking of who has what and where its going much easier because, under the auction system, it was like the wild wild west out there... Wild, wild, East actually.

This is great. Hopefully it'll slide through parliament rather quickly. I'm of the opinion this is on par with the other big laws we're all waiting on. Thanks Yota.

There has been no such thing as smoke in the 7 years I've been following this. Deleting the zeros, like others have said, involves the removal of the large bills from the streets of Iraq and abroad then taking those notes out of circulation and retiring them. Somewhere within that process lower denominated notes would be released and the rate of exchange would be increased. Can't do any of that tomorrow though because they need an economy to support the rate increase so the currency doesn't tank as a result. Thus, we wait...

I would wager they did this, or are doing this, because of the recent actions taken by the CBI to guarantee the dinar both at home and abroad. The idea being if the citizens have confidence in the banks, via these new guarantees, they'll bring their dinar into the banks and make deposits. The banks will then, in turn, loan this money out to citizens for things like cars, houses, small businesses, etc...thus stimulating the economy and thus bringing us one step closer to our goal. If people start bringing it in [their dinar] the bank employees are going to need to know how to count, sort, verify the dinar coming in and be up to speed on what to do with dirty / tattered notes, and counterfeit dinar should they happen to get some in. Hence the meeting with CBI / bank reps resulting in this press release.

My favorite part of the article right here... "He Ghadhban, that "the strategy will include the diversification of sources of income and stimulate investment and build an attractive investment climate for investors and the private sector, and the simplification of procedures and away the state gradually for care of the projects," asserting that "these fundamental factors will work to achieve and is also present within the government program where a lot of service sectors will be transferred to the private sector." While I don't think this spells RV in Feburary I think its very clear that this administration intends to get the economy up and going in a way the previous one never did. All that makes for great news for those of us holding currency Oops... Meant to copy paste this quote as my favorite from the article not what I put in my previous post. Couldn't just edit it here on my phone, lol. "He Ghadhban, that "the economic pressures on the resources of the state and the general budget will be a great catalyst for the implementation of the economic and legal reform programs that we have worked on for nearly the past six years." Yup that's it.

Thanks Markinsa! +1 to you.

Is there a DV link to that Feb 12 article anywhere? I skimmed the news section here and couldn't find any discussion on it. Maybe I'm blind.

In addition to the previous post the dinar being now international is a bit of a misnomer as the dinar has been international now for a while at .1166 just very thinly traded. If it's recognized at the BIS it can be recognized anywhere else a vendor is willing to take it.

I think it's better to be realistic than overtly optimistic. I'm all for the RV ASAP but the fact is, dontlop is right, Iraq needs to diversify. Every time Iraq goes in for their annual consult with the IMF one of the primary things they recommend, because that's all they (IMF) can do, is diversification. Look at Abadi in Davos last week. What was his message? Market economy, diversification, forward movement. They're not going to do this on oil alone, quite frankly, because they can't.

You do realize that iraqbusinessnews is about as far away from Iraq as Texas is. Maybe that's because that's where the website originates from.

The Little Engine That Could?

Better than prime time TV this is. The suspense is killing. Big thanks to Yota et al for bringing the morning entertainment. Here's hoping the other 75% will be done and voted on next time I look at this screen.