Analysis and measurement of the structure of foreign trade and the degree of economic exposure of Iraq (2004-2020)

Abstract

Foreign trade is one of the sectors that ensure interaction between the
local economy and the outside world, through the flow of goods and
services to and from the country, and the links it leaves at the
macroeconomic level, and enhancing the country's competitiveness in
global markets. Therefore, foreign trade has become the main engine of
economic growth, by exporting the surplus production and obtaining foreign
exchange to finance imports of various commodities, especially capital and
intermediate commodities necessary to achieve economic growth.
The role and importance of foreign trade is clearer in the Iraqi economy,
which is characterized as a unilateral rentier economy that depends mainly
on the production and export of crude oil to obtain foreign exchange, which
it uses to finance the import process to provide various commodities and
products to meet local demand, due to the underdevelopment of the main
commodity sectors such as the agricultural sectors and industrial, and their
inability to provide these goods locally. Therefore, foreign trade constitutes
more than half of the gross domestic product during the research period,
and it exceeds the acceptable and permissible natural ratio to avoid falling
into the problem of economic exposure and dependence on the outside.