The Cabinet held its regular meeting on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.

At the start of the meeting, the Prime Minister extended his best wishes to all Iraqis on the occasion of Ramadan.

The Prime Minister directed all ministries to cooperate and coordinate with the Ministry of Electricity, especially the Ministries of Oil, Finance, Industry and Water Resources, and underscored the need to increase generation and to carry out maintenance work to avoid any potential electricity crisis in the summer months.

The Prime Minister also directed security ministries to protect power pylons and pursue terrorists and saboteurs who attempt to target power infrastructure.

The Prime Minister then outlined the general situation in the country, the latest developments of the global economic crisis, its effects on Iraq, and the implementation of the measures taken by the government to mitigate the impact of the crisis.

The Cabinetreceived a detailed report on the health measures in relation to controlling the Coronavirus pandemic, the decrease in the number of cases, andthe ongoing efforts by the Ministry of Health to ensure the availability of vaccines in all health care institutions throughout Iraq.

Following discussions of items on its agenda, the Cabinet agreed several measures including:

• Approve the adoption of the strategy for the repayment of the internal public debt for the years (2022-2024), which was prepared by the Ministry of Finance within the draft law on the federal budget of the Republic of Iraq for the fiscal year2022, and subsequent years.

• Authorise the Minister of Finance to negotiate and sign two draft agreements on the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of income tax evasion with the governments of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and the Republic of Croatia.

• Approvean amendment to Cabinet Resolution (138 of 2018) regarding accrued interest on loans granted to investors who are unable to pay due to the failure of their projects for reasons beyond their control, as follows:

(The Committee of Executive Order No. 6 of 2017 to prepare controls regarding the scheduling of loans and their interests due from investors who are unable to pay and present them to the Council of Ministers for approval).

• Authorise the Ministry of Education to print exam notebooks for stagesix of secondary schools, including outside Iraq in the event that the Ministry of Interior’s printing house is unable to provide these notebooks to the required specifications and conditions