CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VI (1) Contemporary-Eurasia-VI-1-engl | Página 33

MUSHEGH GHAHRIYAN
around $13 billion per year in 2012 and 2013 when oil prices were at
their peak. The income from oil sales as well as foreign investments
generated rapid economic growth. However, the sharp fall of oil prices
starting in summer, 2014 halved the revenues of KRG. Total revenues
from oil sales did not even reach $6 billion per year in either 2014 or
2015 14 .
The situation was particularly acute in Sulaymaniyah province
where anti-establishment sentiments are stronger. Struggling to pay its
dues, the KRG is estimated to now be $14 to $20 billion in debt 15 . The
other major problem is the region’s heavy reliance on imports, which
account for some 80 to 90 percent of goods, analysts estimate 16 .
The poverty rate has hit yet another high level in Kurdistan Region
by increasing more than four times since 2013, from 3 percent to 15
percent. According to the head of the statistics department in
Sulaymaniyah Mahmud Othman, the poverty rate in Kurdistan Region
is still relatively low compared to the rest of Iraq. The KRG struggles
to finance the monthly wages of some 1.4 million people on its
payroll, with around 730,000 of them directly employed by the KRG,
while another 700,000 people have monthly payments from the Kurdish
government in pensions, social protection for the underprivileged,
student stipends and payments to families of Peshmerga victims 17 .
In spite of having political, financial and other problems, the Kurdish
elite decided to hold an independence referendum on September 25,
2017. The independence referendum could have been a good
opportunity to take a time-out and temporarily push back these
problems from the agenda. Also, the success in battlefield against ISIS
made the Kurds a key player in the Middle Eastern scene and an
14
Salih M., Low Oil Prices Complicate Iraqi Kurdish Independence, 09.03.2016,
http://www.mei.edu/content/low-oil-prices-complicate-iraqi-kurdish-independence
15
lbid
16
Dziadosz A., The Economic Case Against an Independent Kurdistan,
26.09.2016,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/kurdistan-barzani-
iraq-turkey-blockade-oil/541149/
17
Poverty rate in Kurdistan Region quadrupled to 15 percent, official,
28.12.2016, http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/281220162
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