The Iraqi government hopes to cancel its 20,000 million euros in external debt by the end of the decade

26 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Iraqi government has revealed this Sunday that the country’s external debt amounts to about 20,000 million euros, an amount that it expects to repay before 2030 and that, nevertheless, represents a substantial reduction compared, for example, to the era of the dictator Saddam. Hussein, when the country came to owe international creditors about 140,000 million.

The figure has been confirmed by the Prime Minister’s financial adviser, Mazhar Muhamad Saleh, who took the opportunity to label as “exaggeration” the estimates that place Iraq’s current debt with the so-called Paris Club (an informal group of developed countries that act as international creditors) amounted to 150,000 million euros.

Speaking to Shafaq, the adviser has indicated that the Paris Club “ended up deducting part of these sovereign and commercial debts by 80 percent or more under an agreement with Iraq in November 2004.”

“Some countries even canceled 100 percent of our debts, including the United States, Algeria, Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia,” said the adviser before explaining that the remaining 20 percent of the debt ended up being restructured for 20 years and is expected to to be paid in 2028.

The adviser has also confirmed that, during its fight in recent years against the jihadist organization Islamic State, Iraq also borrowed from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with the issuance of new bonds worth 2,000 million, which has incorporated into their current estimates.