📄 IMF Country Report No. 25/184 — "Iraq: Selected Issues"
📆 Released: June 15, 2025
🔗 IMF.org

🧠 Summary:
The IMF's latest Iraq report reveals that despite improved security and a young, fast-growing population, Iraq’s non-oil economic growth remains stubbornly low—just 3–4% projected in the medium term. Key drag factors include a bloated public sector, weak productivity, high youth unemployment, poor governance, limited credit access, and outdated labor laws. The report calls for a bold structural reform package—especially in governance, regulation, labor, and banking—to unlock 4.5% more annual growth over 5 years.

💬 Opinion: Iraq’s Currency Evolution Is Quietly Underway

In the shadows of IMF jargon and economic models, something deeper is unfolding: Iraq is preparing the dinar—not just its economy.

The Central Bank of Iraq isn’t just tweaking interest rates or issuing new memos. It's absorbing excess cash from the streets, quietly building a sleek infrastructure of digital payment systems, while launching tenders to modernize further. Over 2 trillion IQD in digital payments last month tells you all you need to know. Cash is still king, but the crown is slipping.

Why?

Because Iraq, long caught in geopolitical tug-of-war, now sees a different path. With global de-dollarization accelerating and neighbors like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE moving toward alternative systems, Baghdad isn’t standing still. It’s syncing digital rails, aligning with ISO 20022, and reducing cash reliance to clean the slate—and set the stage.

👁️ The signs aren’t flashy, but they’re real:

1️⃣ Liquidity buildup: Iraq’s gold reserves are up, foreign debt is being restructured.
2️⃣ Rail activation: Digital apps, fintech onboarding, e-payments expanding.
3️⃣ Value revelation: Not yet. But soon. Once it’s digital, then it’s rare. Then it moves.

⚠️ Yes, challenges remain—mistrust in banks, outdated laws, and fears of revaluation rumors causing premature speculation. But reforms are advancing. Slowly. Quietly. Deliberately.

Kuwait's RV didn’t come with fireworks. Neither will Iraq’s.

✨ It’s not a question of if, but how and when—and the “how” is digital, controlled, and deeply coordinated.

Iraq is not just reforming its economy; it is recalibrating its currency’s future role.

🔍 Watch the quiet. That’s where real change begins.

Melaniastasia Romanov
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FED SHAKE-UP LOOMING: TRUMP’S SHORTLIST HAS WALL STREET BUZZING

Rumors are swirling in Washington and New York: Is President Trump preparing to replace Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve? The talk has never been louder. This time, the shortlist features not just Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, but also the controversial economist Judy Shelton—famous for her support of the gold standard and radical Fed reform.

If Powell goes, could Trump break precedent and tap Bessent to serve as both Treasury Secretary and Fed Chair? Legal experts say it’s possible—there’s nothing in the law preventing one person from running both. But doing so would smash a seventy-year tradition that keeps monetary policy independent from the White House.

Wall Street is on edge. Investors and economists are warning that combining the Treasury and the Fed under one Trump ally could shake confidence in America’s entire financial system. The last time anything close to this happened was before World War II, and since then, the separation between debt management and interest-rate decisions has been sacrosanct.

There’s more at stake than just personnel. With national debt exploding and Trump openly calling for lower interest rates to make government borrowing cheaper, many fear that Fed independence is under direct threat. That opens the door to higher inflation and uncertainty, especially with recent memories of post-pandemic price surges still fresh.

Judy Shelton’s name on the shortlist is also turning heads. Her calls to return to the gold standard and sharply limit Fed power would be a seismic shift from today’s policies. Her appointment would signal a radical new direction for the world’s most important central bank.

Will Trump go with Bessent, Shelton, or a surprise pick? The choice could redefine the rules of American finance and impact every market around the globe.

Stay tuned—this story is just getting started.

Melaniastasia Romanov
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