Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 24/01/201 - 23/07/2011

Chairman of the Egyptian investment calls businessmen to take advantage of investment opportunities in Iraq

The head of the General Authority for Investment Egyptian Osama Saleh, Egyptian businessmen to take advantage of the opportunities and advantages of the investment law in Iraq, particularly in the areas of building and construction, industry and tourism.

Search for and with Iraq's ambassador to Egypt Nizar goodness of God, means of economic cooperation and joint investment in the framework of strengthening relations between Egypt and Iraq and implement the memoranda of understanding signed between the two countries in this regard.

The two sides reviewed the request of the Investment Authority, the Iraqi training between 80 to 100 Iraqi governorates (Basra, Maysan, Dhi Qar), especially with regard to the experience of one-stop shop and how to set up investment opportunities and promote them as the experience of previous training of the Egyptian Investment Authority for 488 of the Iraqi cadres.

For his part, stressed the Iraqi ambassador to the need to increase Egyptian exports to his country in response to Iraqi companies interested in facilitating the transfer of goods and Egyptian goods to Iraq, particularly in the field of furniture and building materials as well as exhibitions of these commodities in the various Iraqi governorates even have the opportunity to see the quality and diversity of products Egypt.

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...onomy&id=39964

Sources: al-Shahristani engaged with parliamentary leaders to form a new block

Khqt sources of state law Friday that the wing of Hussein al-Shahristani, the head of the independent in the coalition of state law holds talks with the leaders of the Iraqi bloc to form a new coalition within the parliament.

The newspaper al-Hayat has Nlguet of Shaker Book spokesman Renewal Movement, led by Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi as telling the emergence of alignments new within a coalition of state law, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's Ayad Allawi, in response to public pressure, strongly denied the existence of any meeting next week in Kurdistan combines Allawi and Maliki and Muqtada al-Sadr, under the auspices of the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

On the future of relations between the "rule of law and Iraqi, he said, a book that some parties are not subject to Allawi and Maliki on the two lists will be a new alliance among themselves to end the crisis and tension in the country and produce a government that can meet the requirements of the Iraqis, saying there will be Anksmat in both Iraq and the rule of law.

http://ar.radionawa.com/Detail.aspx?id=8480&LinkID=63

New York Times: U.S. Sub-contracting firms dominate the rebuilding of Iraq's oil industry

American officials said that American experts provided advice to the Iraqi Oil Ministry on ways to increase oil production without seeking preferences for U.S. companies, where 4 companies controlled oil services giant American subsidiary to rebuild the field of oil industry in Iraq.

The New York Times, that Iraq when making bids for the reconstruction and expansion of the oil industry sector in the country two years ago, has made Russia's LUKOIL-jeou won a historic political victory much of the tenders.

She added that due to win a U.S. company and only one bid for Exxon Mobil to build a field and one out of 11 fields subjected them the Iraqi government that has seemed a little bit of oil will flow benefits to the country, who took the lead in the war on Iraq, the United States.

She noted that the outcome of tenders helped to defuse the criticism in the Arab world that the United States invaded Iraq for its oil. The newspaper quoted Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said no one, even the United States, it can be to steal oil.

It also quoted U.S. officials as saying that American experts who provided advice to the Iraqi Oil Ministry on ways to restore and increase oil production in the country, did so without seeking any preferences to U.S. companies.

They added that Lukoil and many international oil companies that won tenders and contracts currently predominantly with 4 U.S. oil services companies, a world leader in its field, is Halliburton, and Baker Hafs, and Odhirwold International, and Scalambergr.
She won the U.S. companies with the greatest of the four sub-contracts for oil exploration, building wells, and the renewal of old equipment.

Said an analyst at research company and consultancy Wood Mackenzie, Alex Manton said that Iraq is an immense opportunity for the contractors and expect to go half of the $ 150 billion, which is expected to invest international companies in the Iraqi oil fields over the next decade, to companies contracting subsidiary responsible for exploration, most to the four U.S. companies.

The professor of peace studies and global security at the University of Hampshire, U.S. The company services the U.S. oil is generally dominant in the Middle East and globally due to technical excavated sophisticated, and therefore is not surprising that undermine ranks first in Iraq, whatever the phenomena of diplomacy.

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...onomy&id=39965

Alwani: Maliki responsible for the extension or withdrawal of the Americans

A member of the House of Representatives for a coalition of Iraqi Ahmed al-Alwani, the responsibility to extend the stay of U.S. troops or withdrawal of the country is vested in the Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as a leader of the Armed Forces and Minister of the Interior and Defense Agency.

He said al-Alwani (of the Agency news) on Friday that everyone knows that the strategic framework agreement, or the security agreement provides for American forces to leave the end of 2011, after Iraqi security forces are able to musk the security file in full.

He explained that the words bear the responsibility of the House of Representatives, or shake the survival of the withdrawal of U.S. forces is not true because the only party to take such a decision is the commander of the armed forces.


http://ar.radionawa.com/Detail.aspx?id=8469&LinkID=63

Of the parliamentary energy commission plans to revive the law of the national oil company

Student member of the Committee on Energy and Oil parliamentary deputy from the Kurdistan Alliance Bayazid Hassan Act reviving the national oil company of what constitutes a new importance in the oil extraction and marketing.

Hassan said in a press statement that "this law stopped in the eighties and we seek to bring him back."

He called for Hassan to "accelerate the legislation of this law after discussions with relevant experts in this side," pointing out that "This law needs to be a political consensus to pass in parliament."

http://www.radiodijla.com/cgi-bin/ne...?id=2011-06-18

A statement demanding a parliamentary exchange mechanism for oil savings

Demanded the MP for the Iraqi bloc white high Nassif, on Saturday, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance made a statement savings mechanism for oil exchange, the statement of final accounts for the period of the last to be presented to the House of Representatives.

Nassif said in a press statement, "the right of members of the House as representatives of the people to see what was spent during the Hundred Days of the abundance of oil is recycled from the final accounts."

She added: "Transparency must be the central feature of financial transactions for all ministries, the Ministry of Finance should be on top of the list of ministries, which provide detailed tables on the mechanism of exchange, whether during the last hundred days or the first half of this year.

http://www.radiodijla.com/cgi-bin/ne...?id=2011-06-18

Kuwait Beverage Firm to Target Iraqi Market

Kuwait’s Arabian Beverage Company (ABC), which distributes water, juice and dairy products in the Gulf region, plans to boost production and also aims to penetrate the Iraqi market this year, according to Reuters.

The company, owned by Kuwaiti conglomerate Bukhamseen Holding, founders of Kuwait International Bank and Abu Dhabi listed First Gulf Bank, wants to creatae a strong base in the region as it competes with rivals such as Kuwaiti Danish Dairy Company and Saudi’s Al Marai Company.

ABC will double its water production capacity to 240 million units per year to feed demand in the Gulf market and also increase its fleet to about 800 trucks in three years, Elie Abdo, ABC’s deputy general manager for business development told Reuters.

‘Currently we have around 420 distribution trucks in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar… and for the next three years we will stay focused on this region,’ Abdo said.

On the Iraq foray, Abdo said ABC had entered the Iraqi market shortly after the US led invasion in 2003, but through a different brand name and distributors based there.

‘Now we plan to penetrate the Iraqi market in October this year through the ABC brand…and that operation alone could need up to 500 trucks for distribution,’ he revealed.

http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/201...-iraqi-market/

Commercial exchange between Baghdad and Turkey reached $10 billion

Turkish Commercial Attache in Baghdad said on Thursday that commercial exchange with Baghdad increased in 2011 to reach 10 billion dollars and added that the volume of commercial transactions between the two countries increased in 2011 to reach 10 billion dollars. The same source added that it expects trade volume to reach 20 billion dollars in the next few years.

Matin Kerken said during an interview with Alsumarianews that the volume of commercial exchange with Iraq reached 10 billion dollars approximately during the first months of 2011 in comparison with 6 billion dollars last year.

Kerken said he expects commercial exchange between the two countries to reach 11 billion dollars by the end of this year and more than 20 billion dollars during the next 3 years.

During the current year 10 Turkish commercial fairs were held in Iraq in the framework of a plan to hold 25 Commercial Trade aiming at distributing Turkish products. However, because of the high temperatures in Iraq holding fairs will be resumed in September and fairs will be held in Najaf, Babel Basra, Irbil and Suleimaniah.

Turkish Commercial Attache in Baghdad said that Turkish goods are weighting in the Iraqi market and they enjoy a very high quality adding that it is the same products Turkey exports to the USA and Europe. “Turkey will work on producing products that fit Iraqis buying capacity because the Syrian and Iranian products are being cheaper sometimes”, the Attache added.

Turkish Commercial Attache in Baghdad had told Alsumarianews that till now Baghdad doesn’t want to exempt Turkish citizens from getting visas to enter Iraq which impels Turkey to do the same. He also added that Turkish companies lose a lot of time and effort because of this issue when they decide to enter Iraq.

During the visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Baghdad in the middle of October 2009, Iraq and Turkey had signed about 50 memorandum of understanding in order to boost political and economic cooperation especially in the fields of security, water, border passages, oil, linking electricity grids, health, railroads and agriculture.

Iraq vice Premier for Energy Affairs Hussain Al Shahristani said in March 28 2011 that oil pipelines expansion between Iraq and Turkey entered the phase of implementation after the Turkish and Iraqi parliaments approved the new version thereof. Shahristani also added that during his meeting with Turkish Energy Minister he signed contracts to provide Iraq with 2000 megawatts of electricity.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Economics...0-billion.html

Maliki Dissolves the National Alliance, Says No to US Forces

The following article was published by Reidar Visser, an historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford and currently based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. It is reproduced here with the author’s permission. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

It is fair to say that the life cycle of the all-Shiite National Alliance (NA) – the all-Shiite bloc that delivered a second premiership to Nuri al-Maliki in November 2010 – has been an unusual one. In the first place, one could of course argue that when it first came into existence in 2010, the NA was really a reincarnation of the previous Shiite coalition that had existed as the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) from 2004 to 2008 and that was partially re-launched with Iranian support as the Iraqi National Alliance by Ahmad Chalabi, ISCI and the Sadrists in the spring of 2009. But that’s another story. Suffice to say in this context that the National Alliance was actually born twice after the 7 March 2010 parliamentary elections – first in May, when INA nominally merged with the State of Law bloc of Nuri al-Maliki but nothing much happened and no name was given to the new bloc, and later in June, when the leaders of INA and State of Law tentatively began a process of selecting a prime minister candidate and claimed the position as the biggest bloc in parliament in order to challenge Iraqiyya and Ayyad Allawi (who had emerged as the biggest bloc based on the elections results). Not until October 2010, thanks to steady support from both Iran and US ambassador Chris Hill, did Maliki emerge as prime minister candidate of the Shiite super-bloc.

Now the NA is dead again, or so it seems. The thing is, there is no death certificate as such , only the much-overlooked selection yesterday of Khalid Atiyya, from the bloc of independents affiliated with Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani, as parliamentary head of the State of Law bloc. That in itself may not sound terribly exciting but it is: One of the few defining criteria for a bloc (kutla) in Iraqi parliamentary practice post-2003 is that it must have a head or rais. Now, importantly, after much dithering, the National Alliance did eventually agree on such a bloc leader in December 2010, when Ibrahim al-Jaafari was selected. Accordingly, Atiyya’s emergence as head of the State of Law faction yesterday amounts to nothing less than a de facto secession from the NA, since the recognition of State of Law as a kutla by implication negates the continued existence of the National Alliance. It should be added in a footnote that Iraqiyya has actually moved in the opposite direction, despite lots of centrifugal forces being at work. Also in December 2010, the Iraqiyyun faction led by Usama al-Nujayfi announced the election of its own bloc leader in what seemed to be tantamount to a secession from the broader Iraqiyya coalition. But since at least February 2011, Salman al-Jumayli has quite consistently been described as the bloc leader of Iraqiyya.

These developments are not necessarily going to change anything in the short term. In the first place, bloc size comes into play only when the question of selecting the premier is on the agenda. Second, if Maliki really wants to reshuffle the cards and dissolve parliament, he is still in a position to claim the “biggest bloc” since Iraqiyya has shrunk by some 10 deputies over the past month through the defection of White Iraqiyya whereas State of Law has only lost Safiya Suhayl (who became an independent) and therefore is biggest with 88 deputies. But these latest moves do seem significant as possible elements in a long-term plan by Maliki to create some kind of “political majority” government to replace the current “national partnership”one, possibly based on an alliance between State of Law, the Kurds, Wasat and White Iraqiyya. Still, if that is really Maliki’s plan, he will need to convince Iraq’s president, the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, to support him as premier once more, which in turn could mean a demand for further concessions by the Kurds. Another question is how Ibrahim al-Jaafari, until recently the head of the NA, will react. Could the recent selection of his party ally Falih al-Fayyad as deputy minister for national security mean that a deal has been done between Jaafari and Maliki? So far the Jaafari website is silent on the issue.

At any rate, any such new coalition will enjoy only a small majority in parliament. In a move apparently intended to pre-empt Sadrist criticism, State of Law today officially declared it is against any prolongation of the US presence in Iraq after 2011.

http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/201...o-us-forces/2/

Iraq Tenders Intl Railroad for Investment for Lack of Funds

The Iraqi Transport Ministry is planning to tender a railroad line links Iraq to several Asian countries through Iran for foreign investment for lack of funds.

The 200 km Mundhiriya-Qasr Shirin railway will link Iraq’s Baqouba city to Iran through the Mundhiriya border crossing, and from there to several other Asian countries including India and China.

Spokesman for the state-owned railway company Jawad al-Kharsan told AKnews that
“The company has completed all legal and technical work for the line to tender it for investment by global or local companies… the company is not able to carry out the project by itself for lack of funds.

http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/201...lack-of-funds/