The Iraqi parliament voted April 27 to approve the draft law naming the city of Basra the economic capital of Iraq. It is just one of a number of concessions given to Basra in the past year, including allowing the city the right to earn revenue from two of its smaller natural gas fields, allowing it to rename the South Oil Company the Basra Oil Company and giving the position of Iraqi oil minister to Basrawi Jubair al-Luaibi — the first Basrawi ever to be given the post.

Basra is the primary driver of the Iraqi economy. Basra province is home to the five highest yielding Iraqi oil fields and produces roughly two-thirds of Iraq's oil, an amount roughly equivalent to the entire amount neighboring Kuwait produces. Many Basrawis feel entitled to energy revenue, economic development and other benefits, since they produce so much oil and are host to Iraq's only major port. But Baghdad has centralized control and has not prioritized Basra's economic development.

Basra's calls for reform come in different forms, from smaller requests for local concessions and greater share of revenue to larger pushes for its own federal region of Iraq, like Iraqi Kurdistan, giving it more control over oil and natural gas policy. Basra's recently approved designation is a small concession, but it will give the city a heightened profile by enabling the creation of economic institutions, such as a stock market. It won't, however, give Basra more control over its oil revenue.

By giving a small concession to Basra, Baghdad hopes it can heed off calls for an autonomous Basra region. But supporters of a Basra region are already criticizing today's decision. The original draft laws gave Basra fiscal privileges, but those were removed by the Shiite parties in the federal parliament. Shiite parties, however, are not opposed to the measure altogether. The leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Ammar al-Hakim, has been advocating the proposal, hoping it helps Iraq progress toward a federalist system, rather than a regionalist one.