Iraq Has $217.9 Billion of Announced Projects and Spent IQD 236 Billion on Capital in May

Key takeaways

• The GENQ Project Tracker holds 78 Iraqi projects worth $217.9 billion as at 10 August 2026, of which three are complete, carrying $6.54 billion or 3.0 percent of the total.
• Federal capital expenditure was IQD 236 billion in May 2026, an 87 percent reduction against a 2025 monthly average of roughly IQD 1,800 billion, per Ministry of Finance budget execution data reported by Iraq Horizons on 23 July 2026. That run rate funds the tracker's $46.7 billion of unfinished public projects in about 21 years.
• The one twelfth rule Iraq has operated under since January 2026 excludes investment and capital spending, covering salaries, pensions, social welfare and financial oversight only, per Mazhar Mohammed Salih, financial adviser to the prime minister, cited by Channel 8 on 5 February 2026.
• The IMF put Iraq's domestic arrears at close to IQD 14 trillion, 3.8 percent of GDP, in Country Report 25/183 of 11 July 2025, on a 2024 to early 2025 reference. The Iraqi Contractors Union claims IQD 18 trillion across about 1,100 companies, per Kurdistan24 on 15 December 2025. The two are not comparable and no reconciliation exists.
• Only 44.9 percent of tracked projects name a contractor, 14.1 percent are independently corroborated and 7.7 percent carry a completion date. Six contractors account for $101.0 billion, about four fifths of the value GENQ can attribute to a named firm.
• In the week to 6 August 2026 Iraq barred every government office from awarding a contract without pre approval from a new auditing body, with the Federal Board of Supreme Audit and the Integrity Commission required to review all contracts within 10 working days, per Reuters.

The Operating Question Is Not What Iraq Announced, It Is What Iraq Executes

Announced value and executed value are different currencies, and in Iraq the exchange rate between them is unpublished. A reader deciding whether to bid, supply or lend needs to know which projects have money behind them, who is being paid and how late. One arithmetic runs through everything below: the tracker holds $53.2 billion of publicly funded projects, and May 2026 capital spending was IQD 236 billion.

Three of Seventy-Eight Projects Are Complete, and $152.9 Billion Sits in a Stage Called In Progress

The awarded category holds six projects and $140 million because five of the six carry no published contract value: Kirkuk, Basra and Saladin oil and gas packages involving BP, Halliburton and HKN Energy. The whole $140 million is one Middle Euphrates transmission contract. Announced holds $58.4 billion, a stage that in Iraq has meant a memorandum rather than a funded commitment, and the $17.0 billion Development Road and $17.0 billion Baghdad Metro are 58 percent of it.

Three completions total $6.54 billion: the $6.04 billion Karbala Refinery built by Hyundai Engineering and Construction, the $0.50 billion federal export pipeline rehabilitation delivered by the State Company for Oil Projects, and the Al-Nour solar panel production plant in Karbala, which carries no published value. Both valued completions were publicly funded.

Eight tracked projects announced before 2020 are still in progress: Grand Faw Port dates to 2006, Bismayah New City, the $10.0 billion Hanwha Engineering and Construction development outside Baghdad, to 2012, Rumaila's redevelopment to 2009, the Baghdad water and sewerage project to 2018 and the Basra electricity dissemination project to 2019. In progress is a category a project enters and does not reliably leave. Only six projects, 7.7 percent, carry an expected completion date. Two fall in 2026, and one of those, the Basra electricity dissemination and development project due 30 June 2026, is still in progress as at 10 August.