Baghdad, Dec 23 (IANS): The Iraqi cabinet Tuesday approved a $106-billion budget for the next year, with a deficit of about $19 billion, the government said.

"The Iraqi cabinet has approved the draft budget for 2015 in its special session today, with a total of 123 trillion Iraqi dinars (about $106 billion)," Xinhua quoted government spokesman Rafid al-Jubouri as saying.

The budget is based on an average oil price of $60 per barrel due to the decrease in crude oil prices in the world markets, al-Jubouri said.

"The draft budget left a deficit of about 23 trillion Iraqi dinars," he said.

The government has specified several means to cover the deficit, including domestic borrowing and imposing some fees on certain economic activities, al-Jubouri said without giving further details.

Iraq's economy depends on oil revenues for nearly 95 percent of its budget, and its oil ministry said earlier that it was working to increase the country's oil production from about three million barrels per day (bpd) to more than 3.8 million bpd during 2015.

Such an increase was supposed to be one of the plans to cover the deficit of the budget.

The approval of the budget is seen as a positive accomplishment for Haider al-Abadi's government as the previous cabinet under former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki failed to approve the 2014 budget due to political wrangling.

According to Iraqi law, the annual budget must be approved by the Iraqi parliament and the presidency council.

After the announcement of the budget approval by the cabinet, parliament Speaker Salim al-Jubouri told a state-run Iraqi channel that he called on the members of the parliament to convene on a special session on Thursday to discuss the next year budget.

In 2010, Iraq announced that its proven oil reserves had increased to 143.1 billion barrels from the previous estimation of 115 billion barrels.