Iraq’s poverty 23%, Mideast & North-Africa official says

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Percentage of poverty in Iraq has reached 23%, the Regional Director of the Middle-East and North Africa , Hadi al-Araby said on Saturday, adding that the country was facing difficult development challenges, most outstanding of which was depending on oil resources, absence of investment and poor maintenance of the infrastructure.   “Nobody can hide the fact that Iraq enjoys huge human and natural resources, but it still faces great challenges to achieve a complete economic and continuous development, benefiting all its people,” Arabi said in a symposium held in Baghdad on Saturday about Iraq ’s conditions, as seen by the granting community.   Arabi said that he wanted the symposium to help the Iraqi government to define some of the priorities to achieve economic development, including the minimization on depending on oil resources to achieve an accelerated transformation in its revenues.   “Iraq has suffered from a series of wars and international sanctions, thing that led to a long absence of investment, maintenance of infrastructure, the institutional and humanitarian organizations, and the decrease of the level of services, thing that led to the decrease of the living standards of citizens,” Arabi said.   “The percentage of poverty in Iraq has reached 23%, which is a high percentage,” he said, adding that “the loophole of poverty forms 4.5%, thing that means that a small increase of the revenues of the poor families would raise the level of the majority of poor people above the poverty line and Iraq would become the best state in the Region.”   The symposium was attended by a number of Arab and foreign officials, as well as Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his Deputy Saleh al-Mutlaq, Vice-President, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Foreign Minister, Hoshiar Zibari, the Official Spokesman for the Iraqi government, Ali al-Dabbagh, Finance Minister, Raf’e al-Issawi and others.   SKH (FT)