The government is preparing a package of measures to address the difference in the exchange rate, including regulating the import process and ensuring the entry of the largest number of traders and importers into the window of selling foreign currency. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is working on several projects to ensure the Iraqi working class is not affected by the exchange rate. The government is now working on the project of [the equal deal] for trade and imports with some countries such as China and India in their own currencies. Baghdad is “studying the establishment of a free zone to import materials, marketing them to the private sector and ensuring their delivery to the consumer at competitive prices in Iraqi dinars.
Parliamentarian Hussain Mouanes “Iraq has been and continues to be a slave to the US dollar, even though every country's economic strength depends on the strength of its currency. We need to develop real economic foundations to advance our country and break free from the dollar's hegemony,” Mouanes added. Iraq had banned the US dollar for private and personal use to strengthen the economy further, with the Ministry of Finance adding that there would be legal punishment for those dealing in foreign currencies.
The Iraqi government has been in the same line with other nations who have grown tired of the US dollar hegemony. Mazen Ahmed, director-general of investment and remittances at the Iraqi Central Bank (CBI), has come out publicly and said that by 1 January 2024, Iraq will ban all US dollar cash transactions within the country.
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