Shabibi Videos (10/24/2013)

From time to time I hear people cite the videos of Shabibi when he was in Washington D.C. in April of 2011 as reasons for believing in the RV.  I've watched these videos several times and I have to wonder if these people are watching the same videos, because everything in them tells me that the big RV that the dinar crowd is waiting for just ain't gonna happen.



In the first video (above) Shabibi states that prior to 2003 Iraq had hyperinflation which led to a depreciated currency.  They also had sanctions, low oil output, high unemployment, and an underdeveloped infrastructure.  So when Saddam was removed and the coalition government and military forces began the transition to a democracy and a free market economy, there was a need for economic stability.  Without stability it's hard to define or accomplish your objectives.  That stability would be characterized by a stable exchange rate, low inflation, and an orderly payment system.  By accomplishing their objectives, the CBI had paved the way for the Iraqi government to rebuild the country by attracting foreign investment.



In the second video he states that Iraq is rich in oil, but not in development, so they need to bring investors into the country to develop it.  He then states that the growing foreign currency reserves are being used to provide stability which is good for the government and for investors.  Pressure from within Iraq to use the reserves for certain projects and pressure from outside of Iraq (exogenous factors) to devalue their currency have been resisted in order to maintain economic stability.  He feels that this stability will continue which will provide the right environment for foreign investment for the foreseeable future.  At the end of the video he was asked about a potential revaluation of the dinar.


 
He answered that question in the third video by saying essentially that they might raise the value if inflation becomes an issue again.  Half a year later that happened when coalition forces left Iraq and turned in their dinar for their respective nations' currencies, causing a spike in inflation due to the forces of supply and demand.  The CBI's response in January of 2012 was to adjust the exchange rate from 1170:1 to 1166:1, raising the value 1/3 of 1%.  Contrary to the mythical RVs of the dinar gurus, this is how revaluations usually work.  Shabibi also mentioned that factors like imports/exports and balance of payments could determine the need for revaluation. Apparently they haven't been a problem since he said that.

What many gurus have never told dinar investors is that the value of the dinar increased from Nov. 1, 2006 to Jan. 1, 2009 a total of 20% because of a policy change at the CBI.  They went to a crawling peg for 26 months in order to bring the inflation rate down to a tolerable level.  That 20% increase had nothing to do with increased oil production, GDP, growing currency reserves, or how popular the dinar was.  It was a monetary policy change to bring down inflation and nothing more, and it worked.  Once inflation settled below 10% they went to a policy of exchange rate stability which they have been on for nearly five years now.

Two years ago I did a post called Dinar Fact Sheet where I showed a document purportedly from the U.S. Treasury stating: "From 2006 to 2008, the CBI allowed the currency to appreciate by about 20 percent, primarily as a way to combat inflation".  This was confirmed in an IMF document I've referenced several times which stated:  "The central bank followed a policy of exchange rate stability which has translated in a de facto peg of the exchange rate since early 2004. However, from November 2006 until end 2008, the CBI allowed the exchange rate to gradually appreciate. As a result, the exchange rate arrangement of Iraq was reclassified to the category of crawling peg effective November 1, 2006. Since the start of 2009, the CBI returned to its earlier policy of maintaining a stable dinar."



Since the main factor in raising the value 20% during that time was high inflation there's really no reason to conclude that the IQD will increase in value any time soon unless inflation becomes a concern again by climbing back up to 10% or more.  Currently inflation in Iraq is quite low as the chart above indicates.  

Later in the video Shabibi was asked to comment on the news articles about "cutting the zeros".  He referred to it as "redenomination".  He responded that there was a lot of criticism of the proposal .... "all kind of talk".  He said that some critics of cutting the zeros feel that it will lead to depreciation of the currency.  That's odd, huh?  Why would critics think that raising the value 100,000% would cause depreciation of the currency?  Well the fact is the critics know that the proposal isn't a revaluation but a redenomination as Shabibi clearly stated, and history shows us that sometimes currencies depreciate soon after a redenomination.  (The Turkish Lira, for example, depreciated for three years following the 2005 redenomination.)  Thus the crtics' concern.  He went on to say that it was just being done to "facilitate payment", meaning that it makes cash transactions easier.  (The same fact sheet I mentioned above stated that "Under the proposed redenomination, the Iraqi government would issue a new dinar note that will be equivalent to 1000 current dinars. The exchange rate would be 1.17 new dinars to the dollar, equivalent to 1,170 current dinars to the dollar", which would certainly qualify as "facilitated" or "easier" since one dinar would then be able to purchase what 1,000 dinar purchased prior to redenomination.)  He also mentioned "ease of counting" but said nothing about an increase in purchasing power being caused by the proposal.

Shabibi then gives us a brief history lesson, saying that the zeros were added because of inflation back in the 80s.  That's when the money supply went from billions to trillions in Iraq.  He says that conditions are different now and they have decided to go ahead with this plan to "bring back the Iraqi dinar" by removing the three zeros that were added because of past hyperinflation.  So according to Shabibi, "bringing back the Iraqi dinar", "cutting the three zeros", and "redenomination" all mean the same thing.  He then adds that before that can happen they need to educate the people and they need the violence in the country to subside so that the security forces can assist in the implementation of the redenomination.  Some of the gurus have siezed upon the word "propaganda" as if Shabibi inadvertently let it slip that they're trying to hide the fact that they're going to enact the largest revaluation in history.  The fact is, the word "propaganda" originally had a neutral connotation.  From Wikipedia:

"While the term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples (e.g. Nazi propaganda used to justify the Holocaust), propaganda in its original sense was neutral, and could refer to uses that were generally benign or innocuous, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging persons to report crimes to law enforcement, among others."

Or an upcoming currency change, perhaps?

So you can see here that Shabibi's use of the word "propaganda" wasn't necessarily indicative of anything covert or sinister.  Even if he hadn't changed it to "advertisement" it would have been an appropriate description of the campaign to educate the public about an approaching redenomination.  Some people will read RV into anything.

Shabibi then states that a redenomination would require help from security forces.  Some have argued against the lop, insisting that there's no reason to delay it year after year if that's what they really intended to do.  Well, actually there is.  Since the redenomination was announced a couple of years ago violence has increased in Iraq.  So have smuggling and money laundering.  Those things require the attention of security forces which would be needed during a redenomination.  To redenominate while things are so unstable in Iraq would weaken overall security to an intolerable degree.  This isn't Sam saying this.  It's Shabs.  He hopes that "security forces become less busy with the violence issue so they can devote time for us".      



In the fourth and final video, Shabibi repeats his concerns about inflation, and price/exchange rate stability.  He concludes by answering a question about the "policy rate", which I believe to be essentially the same thing as the prime rate in the US.  He says that the CBI is concerned about the banks charging high interest rates, so they have a problem with both the banks and the government.

Everything Shabibi talked about in these videos is contrary to what the gurus have been feeding us.  Shabibi said nothing about raising the value 100,000%.  He said that revaluation depends on inflation, and the history of the IQD tells us that raising the value to combat inflation only requires small adjustments that will probably not provide any profits for dinar investors.  He said that cutting the zeros is a redenomination.  He said Iraq needs a stable exchange rate in order to plan, to budget, and to attract investment into the country.

It seems clear to me what Shabibi was saying in these videos, and it also seems clear to me that the only justification for believing in a big RV is if everything Shabibi said here was "smoke".  Given the fact that the IQD's value is still below a tenth of a penny two and a half years later I'd say that's not bloody likely.

Question: Revaluation

With respect to the ongoing and need of stability in Iraq
and its exchange rate, we did not follow that there is a direct need for a potential revaluation of the currency to its due for domestic and foreign investment in Iraq, and in regard to that, how far you believe we are from a potential revaluation of the Iraqi currency.

Shabibi answer:

Well thank you very much for this question and the ... ahmmm ....... even if I know the answer I cannot tell you .. (laughter) the thing is ... you cannot have an economist saying without....the answer depends, so the question here is if revaluation is really going to depend on what extent we are going to continue controlling the inflation.. as you know, if you go to the Central Bank website ... the first job is maintaining price stability .

So there is a little bit of inflation in Iraq ... it use to be 2%... 3% ... now is about 5% .

But we are watching that very carefully ... If this inflation
continues we will have to revisit the question of exchange rate because revaluation depends on inflation ... of course .. the other factors that determine the movement in currencies are a lot … sometimes we look at trade, exports and imports, all the obligations, the balance of payments and all this things ...definitely no doubt you look at those ... but those are problems related to the development part of the economy.

The question of maintaining a price stability is really something ...you see the inflation and all this things..... cause nobody else in the economy is concern with inflation .... the government puts its budget... the government is the spender and the Central Bank its saver.... It's not very important for them to concentrate on inflation .... so actually the question here is we are going to track and follow the development in inflation first and of course other factors which I mentioned. Second then will determine our exchange rate movement. Thank you Governor.

This may be the same question, so I can understand if you can't answer.
My name is Bob Kelly, I am an Investor in Iraq, the Summit Hotel in the International Zone with the OPEC financing.

Question: Redenomination

I've heard a report in the last couple of days That Iraq is about to cut three zeros off the currency ...they call that re-denomination that may be the same question that you just received but I wonder if you had any information about that.

shabibi answer

Well, I mean .... I don't know whether if it is the same question, I think this cutting of three zeros... shouldn't be exaggerated ... that is a problem...the question is ... just re-denomination and .... people writing a lot of articles in the news papers... criticizing the Central Bank…., that is going to devalue the Iraqi dinar... that is going to depreciate ... all kinds of talks. This is a question, just actually, to facilitated payment... ease of counting and all this things.... when you see a lot of figures, you see trillions and huge figures.... if you want to be precise and you see twelve figures or fifteen figures or digits ... So I think we have a plan on that.

If you remember ... there was not a government decree to add this zeros. It happened because of the course of development of the economy at the beginning of the eighties.... Inflation was very high ... Inflation was rampant and therefore... small denoms start not to be use ...so government started to add the three zeros.... and of course conditions are different now .

Inflation is under control, exchange rate is manage by the Central Bank.... when you have the zeros you could not manage ... not because of fault of the government or the Central Bank (only) ... which I think there was but because there were a lot of exogenous (external) factors.

I'm not saying that we are champions now... there were a lot external factors which affected and a lot of people did not know what to do, so they started to add three zeros and all this things.

So now the situation is completely different from that time, you had a high inflation, you have now a low inflation, you had actually something which is a stable macroeconomics situation . At that time the situation was not stable . So the only way to combat all of this things at the time was to increase the denomination and put three zeros.


I think… to bring back the Iraqi dinar when actually the three zeros are remove .... of course, this will have to go hand in hand with the monitoring of the exchange rate and all this things, and we'll see ...

I think now, it is probably .... we are studying ...not studying, we have decided actually on that, when to implement that. Removal this three zeros is very soon, but of course this requires not only the Central Bank activity it requires a lot of propaganda, a lot of advertising campaign and all of this things, and you have to go probably a campaign... to educated a lot of people on this things…. and I think it needs a lot of help from the government, from many people from the government, specially the security forces, and we hope the security forces becomes less busy with the violence issue so that they can give more time for us.


http://coquidinares.forumotion.com/t8504-dr-shabibi-answering-revaluation-and-redenomination-questions#35233

Link courtesy chattels

Thanks for the transcript, Nash.  People need to know that Shabibi was responding to a question about removing three zeros and he used the word "redenomination".  He also explained that the zeros were added in the 1980s due to inflation, which contradicts the guru lie that the zeros were added because the UN devalued their currency as a pre-war strategy.