IMF Staff Country Reports

This paper presents the Republic of Iraq’s Technical Assistance report on Government Finance Statistics (GFS) mission. The Ministry of Finance (MOF) has started the implementation of the national budget reform project which is one of the several reform projects prepared in the context of the broader economic reform strategy “the white paper” launched in October 2020. The mission’s objectives were to specifically support the Budget, Public Accounting and Debt Departments in implementing the tasks related to the strategic target on enhancing budget preparation and reporting in line with the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 framework and its integration in the Integrated Financial Management Information System. As a critical step to improve the budget classification, the mission supported the MoF in developing a first comprehensive mapping of outlays to Classification of the Functions of Government. The MoF needs to establish an inter-departmental taskforce in charge of GFS compilation. Furthermore, the MoF should initiate a phased approach for expanding institutional coverage of GFS beyond Budgetary Central Government.