Money transfers from Iraq ‘picking up’

AMMAN – Money transfers between Iraq and Jordan resumed last week after weeks of sharp decline due to instability in the region, Alaa Eddine Diraniyeh, president of the Jordanian Exchange Association, said Monday. 

Diraniyeh told The Jordan Times over the phone that cash transfer services from Iraq to Jordan are currently available at three Jordanian banks: Capital Bank, Bank of Jordan and The Housing Bank for Trade and Finance.

“Money transfers from Iraq to Jordan are picking up gradually,” the money changer said, noting that cash transfers from Iraq are mainly in US dollars and are considered an important source of foreign currency. 

Diraniyeh also pointed out that the resumption of cash transfer services between the two countries was a relief for Iraqi businesspeople based in Amman.  Some of them have been unable to receive cash from Baghdad due to fighting between Sunni rebels and the Shiite-led government of Nouri Al Maliki that raged in June, resulting in an estimated 50 per cent drop in money transfers. 

There are thousands of Iraqi businesspeople who reside in Jordan and they mainly rely on receiving US dollars from Iraq to conduct their businesses, he explained. 

Diraniyeh said figures on the volume of cash transactions from Iraq into Jordan were not available to the association. 

Instability in Iraq has also badly hit exports from Jordan’s free zone in Zarqa to the Iraqi market as nearly 70 per cent of the free zone’s exports used to go to Iraq, according to the president of the Jordan Free Zone Investors Commission, Nabil Rumman.