The Iraqi Government Approved and Submitted the 2009 Budget to the Parliament

The Iraqi government announced its agreement on the next year 2009 budget, and it was submitted to the parliament for endorsement, saying it is 79 trillion Iraqi dinars which is equivalent to 70.5 billion dollars, with deficit of $ 16 billion dollars, as the price of a barrel of crude oil was calculated at 62.5 U.S. dollars, with earlier expectations that the next budget is 80 billion Dollars.

The government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that the Cabinet had approved at the regular meeting of the Assembly on Tuesday, the federal budget to Iraq in 2009, amounting to 79 trillion Iraqi dinars, distributed over 62 trillion dinars as operational budget and 17 trillion dinars as investment budget. Al Dabbagh said in a press statement sent a copy to "Elaf" that the budget and the draft budget law will be submitted to the parliament for discussion and ratification.

Al Dabbagh, who said yesterday that the Cabinet discussed at a special meeting the Federal budget of Iraq in 2009 in the light of economic developments and the global financial crisis and the decline in oil prices, adding that the Ministry of Finance submitted a draft of proposed budget $ 79 trillion Iraqi dinars that the equivalent to70.5 billion dollars Spread over 62 trillion dinars (55.3 billion dollars) as operational budget and 17 trillion dinars (15.2 billion dollars) as investment budget. Al-Dabbagh said in a statement that the budget revenues, which have been calculated on the basis of the selling price of crude oil at 62.5 dollars for a barrel, and with estimated total of 61 trillion dinars (54.4 billion dollars) with deficit limits estimated 18 trillion dinars (16 billion dollars). Al- Dabbagh said that the adoption of the budget will be in the next few days after the review by ministers.

The Iraqi government announced weeks ago that next year's budget will amount to 80 billion dollars, but the lower of oil prices paid to reduce the budget for what Finance Minister Bayan Jabr described it as resolution that would negatively affect the expenditures of all state facilities as well as the amounts of investment for the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure in the country.

He said Iraq prepared three budgets for next year in the light of the sale of oil prices of 47 dollars per barrel, and then rebounded to $ 67 and more than a hundred dollars. He said Iraq was selling a barrel of oil amounting to $ 120 but sells for fifty dollars today and maybe less in the future. Al Zubeidi said that his country had decided to reduce the state budget for 2009 after the decline in oil prices in world markets after prices drop to less than half the level record of 147.27 dollars per barrel reached in last mid-July. Iraq has the third-largest proven oil reserves in the world and relies on crude oil exports in almost all the income of foreign currency.