Mr. Wadee Al Handal, the Chairman of the Iraqi Private Banks League, delivered the opening address at the Annual Iraqi Banking Conference in the Kurdistan Region, extending a warm welcome to all attendees.

Al Handal underscored the pivotal role of the banking sector in fostering economic growth, catalyzing investments, and shaping Iraq into an enticing hub for domestic and foreign investors across all industries. Additionally, he shed light on the substantial opportunities within this sphere and the innovative solutions poised to revitalize the private sector.

He also tackled the various challenges impeding these objectives. These challenges encompass the provision of requisite funding for investment initiatives and the creation of job prospects and growth in the private sector to alleviate the ongoing strain on government operational expenses. These are issues that merit our profound attention.

Furthermore, Al Handal emphasized the conference's core mission, which is to deliberate on improving the banking sector, particularly concerning its international relations and the Central Bank's role in this context, in addition to delineating strategies to reform, enhance, and equip the private sector to make it able to meet the forthcoming demand for various of banking services and to position it as a robust alternative to the government banking sector, in a more organized, flexible, and alignment manner with the latest international standards in the areas of compliance, anti-money laundering, technology integration, and human resource development.

Al Handal noted that amidst the rapidly changing global landscape and challenges, there has been substantial headway in the structure of the banking sector. This transformation has materialized through the strategic initiatives of the Central Bank of Iraq and the government's clear-cut digital transformation programs, which encompass both transactional and payment facets.