Iraq approves 2021 budget

Shafaq News / Iraq’ Council of Ministers approved on Monday the 2021 state budget.

The cabinet held special meetings headed by Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and approved the fiscal budget of 2021. 

No further details were shared.

A leaked draft of Iraq’s state budget sent Iraqis into a panic on Thursday as it confirmed the government’s intentions to devalue the national currency, the Iraqi dinar, and cut salaries to cope with the impacts of a severe economic crisis.

Discussions about devaluating the Iraqi dinar, which has been pegged to the dollar for decades, have been going on for weeks as the government worked to finalize the 2021 budget. The draft law, which has to go through a parliament vote first, gives an anticipated exchange rate of 1,450 Iraqi dinars for the dollar — a significant drop from the central bank’s current official rate of approximately 1,182 dinars for $1.