What is the status of Iraq’s economy?
Iraq’s $42 billion economy continues to be hobbled by rampant unemployment, sluggish growth, and insufficient oil revenue. Joblessness is anywhere between 30 and 50 percent, while a private sector has failed to materialize. “Of the nearly $20 billion of U.S. appropriated funds to reconstruct Iraq, only $805 million was directed toward jump-starting the private sector,” write Johanna Mendelson-Forman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Merriam Mashatt of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Meanwhile, economic growth in Iraq remains around 4 percent, according to the World Bank, though estimates vary. And revenue from oil production—whose monthly levels of roughly 2 million barrels per day (bpd) falls short of the 2.5 million bpd target—is about $3 billion per month, a pittance given Iraq’s vast, though undeveloped, oil reserves. What factors contribute to Iraq’s poor economy? • Lack of security. About one out of every five dollars that goes toward nonmilitary Iraqi recons
