Baghdad – IA – Nassar Al-Hajj
Today, Friday, the Prime Minister’s Advisor for Financial Affairs, Mazhar Muhammad Saleh, determined the expected volume of total spending, the hypothetical deficit, and the price of a barrel in the 2025 budget.
Saleh told the (INA): “The budget for next year 2025 will not deviate from the constants approved in Federal General Budget Law No. 13 of 2023 (the three-year budget) presented by the government and approved by the House of Representatives for the years 2023-2024-2025, especially in Principles and objectives consistent with the government programme.”
He added, “Despite this, the 2025 budget must be hedged with a hypothetical deficit of 64 trillion dinars, which is a (hedge) deficit that has become established by law, to avoid fluctuations in the general budget revenues for the coming year, especially oil revenues that are subject to fluctuations in the cycle of oil assets.” And the conditions of the energy markets in the world, as long as the total spending ceiling will reach perhaps 200 trillion dinars, depending on the country’s financial and economic circumstances.”
He continued, “The priorities and sustainability of spending will remain, in all circumstances, in the interest of securing salaries, pensions, and social care without a doubt, followed by governing expenditures and international obligations that must be repaid, such as public debt, in addition to other important investment and development variables.”
He warned that “the price of a barrel of oil in the tripartite budget, to which the 2025 budget is subject, was set at $70 and an export capacity of 3.4 million barrels per day for the purposes of determining oil revenues in the general budget.”
He pointed out that “any annual increase in oil prices exceeding $70 per barrel of exported oil will reduce the percentage of the hypothetical budget deficit mentioned above, with the importance of striving to maximize non-oil revenues from taxes, fees, and government wages collected according to the law, with the necessity of imposing high discipline on Public expenditures, and notwithstanding the above, the approval of the budget schedules for the year 2025 in accordance with Article 77/Second of the above law will be more detailed and clear in stating the expected public revenues and the expenditures that must be spent and showing all obligations and in details with high transparency and financial governance.”