U CONTROL DE CALIDAD DE PRODUCTOS Y SISTEMAS

The population of Iraq at the end of 1991 was estimated at 19.5 million. Iraq’s population growth rate has been high, reaching an annual average of 3.6 per cent during

1980-1988. The World Bank projects that this rate will slow down to 3.4 per cent over the 1988-2000 period but the high fertility rate (6.3 in 1988) and a young population pyramid suggest that the rate of population growth will remain high (World Population

Profile, 1991, A/5). The combination of the fertility of the Mesopotamian plain and the

location there of the government in Baghdad has led to much more rapid population growth in this region than all others. There has been a general and accelerating trend for the people of the less prosperous regions to migrate to the lowlands and particularly to the major cities that are sited there. Baghdad and the govemorate around the capital accounted for more than 30 per cent of the population at the time of the 1987 census. An axis of dense population developed between Baghdad and Basra as a result of migration and natural growth, leaving all other areas of the country comparatively sparsely populated; however, the missile and artillery barrages against Basra during 1986 and 1987 caused an exodus of population from Basra to safer areas of the country.

Table C5.1:

Iraq: religious groups (1987)

Population Per cent

Shia Muslims 8,801,000 53.5

Sunni Muslims 6,827,000 41.5

Christians 592,000 3.6

Yazidis & others 230,000 1.4

Total 16,450,000 100.0

Source: EIU, 1990,8.

Some 73 per cent of Iraq's population is resident in towns and the annual growth rate of the urban population was estimated to have averaged 4.8 per cent during 1980-88, according to World Bank data. The major towns are Baghdad, with an estimated population of 5.4 million in 1988, Basra with 1.4 million (during 1987 its population was reduced due to heavy Iranian shelling in the Iran/Iraq War), Mosul with 1 million and

Kirkuk with 550,000. Migration to towns has eroded some of the ethnic, linguistic and religious differences between the various regions, although family, tribal, religious and cultural affiliations remain strong. The majority of Iraqis are Muslims (95 per cent), most of whom are non-orthodox Shia, (53.5 per cent of the total population) and orthodox Sunni (41.5 per cent), who are a clear minority despite their favoured political and social positions within the state (especially after excluding the Sunni Kurds). Christians make up 3.6 per cent of Iraqis, the Chaldeans being the most important, with 3 per cent of the total population. Small numbers of Yazidis and Jews make up the remainder (see table C5.1 )(EIU, 1990, 8).

The ethnic balance in Iraq is a major complication in an already varied religious pattern. Arabs comprise the majority of the population with 73.5 per cent, though the Kurds at 21.6 per cent are an important component of the total. A variety of other ethnic groups gathered in Iraq during Ottoman times and were augmented by Persians who visited the Shia Muslim shrines of Karbala and Najaf, and often remained (see table C5.2) (EIU, 1990,1991, 9).

Table C5.2:

Iraq: ethnic groups (1987)

Population Per cent

Arabs 12,091,000 73.5 Kurds 3,553,000 21.6 Turkomens 395,000 2.4 Others 411,000 2.5 Total 16,450,000 100.0 Source: EIU, 1990-91,9

C5.3 The economy

The national economy of Iraq before independence was very weak, and almost all the population was employed in agriculture. After World War I, the advent of petroleum - powered irrigation pumps and other modem machinery began to change farming methods. Oil revenues grew in the 1930s and the government of Iraq began to spend increasing sums of money on economic development (Abbas, 1984, 111).

Iraq is a socialist economy in which the public sector plays a dominant role with responsibility for 85-90 per cent of the country's GNP and 95 per cent of imports. Private sector activity is relatively insignificant though surprisingly buoyant.

The great resources of Iraq are its fertile soils, (in Northwest Al-Jezirah and in the river valleys in the Northwest and in the lowland) its water and oil. Iraq had an almost exclusively agricultural economy until expansion in manufacturing, service industries, and non-agricultural activities began in the 1950s. The successive governments have committed themselves to industrial growth and increasing income from oil production has enabled the Iraqi government to devote a considerable percentage of the national budget to industrial development and modernization of its agricultural base. Land- distribution reforms initiated in 1959, and amended by the 1970 agricultural act, co­ operative rural associations, and the decline of the landed aristocracy have contributed to improved agricultural productivity and to a more equitable distribution of income.

After the Iraq/Iran war, the most immediate task for Iraq was the rehabilitation of its oil industry, from which increased oil exports would bring the funds for reconstruction and economic development. The average annual rate of growth in GNP was reported by the World Bank at 4.4 per cent for the period 1965-1973, rising thereafter to approximately 10.5 per cent until the beginning of Iran/Iraq War. As a result of the Iran/Iraq war by 1980 a serious decline in the GDP had set in. In the latter half of the 1980s Iraq's economy recorded erratic growth rates and 1987 and 1989 saw large increases in the nominal GDP largely due to a rise in oil output combined with a recovery of oil prices (EIU, 1990-91, 13). The cost of repairing the industrial plant alone was estimated at 16 billion $US (Fisher, 1989, 465), (these estimates were collected before the Gulf War).