The Shift towards a market economy and economic security challenges in Iraq after 2003

Submitted By
Abbas N. Hamid Al-Bakri

To The Council of Management and Economic College

University of Karbala

As Part of the Requirements to get The
Degree of master in Economic Sciences

Supervisor By

Prof. Dr. Fadel Musa Al-Maliki

Abstract: Achieving the well-being of individuals and the sufficiency of society in various goods and services and protecting the economic interests of the state cannot be achieved without achieving economic security, and achieving self-sufficiency through revitalizing the agricultural and industry sectors secures the needs of individuals and is a source of strength to make the economy more stable, especially after opening up to the outside world. Revitalizing these two sectors by adopting different economic policies will increase their productivity and provide decent work opportunities for members of society and lift them out of the bitter reality of poverty, hunger and fear into reassurance and hope and increase their incomes to enable them to obtain good education and health. This would be a correct starting point towards the transformation towards a market economy and achieving positive results in economic growth without any significant disruption. Therefore, this study starts from the premise that work to achieve economic security plays an important role in the development of the private sector and the gradual transition towards a market economy. In order to test this hypothesis, the study was divided into three chapters, the first dealt with the theoretical framework of economic transformation and economic security, the second dealt with the nature of the economic transformation of Iraq in light of the challenges of economic security, and the third dealt with the analysis of the reality of economic security and the shift towards a market economy in Iraq for the period 2003-2018 , The results were obtained that the process of transition to a market economy needs to develop a comprehensive strategy that takes into account the failures and circumstances that Iraq has gone through over many years, including changing the constitution and setting up a comprehensive program for economic and political reform, and that the Iraqi economy suffers from major development problems represented by control The state controls the means of production in all economic sectors, the decline in the quality of its institutions, the imbalance of the production structure, and reliance on one resource in financing the general budget, which is the revenues of the oil sector, that is, it failed to manage the economy and achieve economic security, and the decline in the contribution of the agricultural and industrial sectors to the GDP due to wrong and unintended policies It made them unable to achieve self-sufficiency and degraded their productivity. Consequently, the transition to a market economy was without The fulfillment of this condition increased the underdevelopment of these sectors due to foreign competition for local products and the opening of borders to all of them.