Press release from Minister of Planning and Development Cooperation
 COSIT

Reviewing the Primary results of the economic activity during 2007, COSIT prepared an estimation of the Iraqi economic development for all sectors covering the economic and social activities. These are part of efforts carried by COSIT to provide the latest data and statistics on various aspects of economic life and the macro levels achieved by the Iraqi economy.

GDP (Gross Domestic Product) estimates for the third quarter of 2007 indicate that GDP has reached 20.1 Trillion Iraqi Dinar at current prices and 8.6 Trillion Iraqi Dinar at constant prices (of 1988 base year). These results show that there is a real growth of 6.1% has been achieved during the third quarter of 2007 compared to second quarter GDP of 2007.

As for the preliminary estimates of the total economic activity as a whole for 2007, annual oil production has achieved a very high growth. The production volume increased from 714 million barrels to 715 million barrels between 2006 and 2007 respectively. It is well known, that the oil sector account for 69% of GDP.

Moreover, the government spending on public services -which considered as the second highest sector in GDP, accounting for 14%- has achieved also an obvious increase as it's shown from the actual data of government spending up to the end of September/2007.

Therefore, Gross Domestic Product in 2007 is expected to achieve a real growth -at constant prices- to more than 5%. This increase is a significant achievement, despite of the difficult conditions faced by the Iraqi economy during this year. Having in mind, that the annual growth rate had reached to 5.8% in 2006 compared with 2005.