Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. (before Jan.20,2007)

Justice / follow-up trade affairs adviser to the American Consulate in Baghdad, Iraq, in statements that the investments of the United States of America Direct in Iraq worth hundreds of millions of dollars and may amount to several billions


He added that Iraq needs investments of tens of billions of dollars, and confirmed that there was an opportunity today to invest in Iraq in several areas and in various economic sectors in spite of the difficult security situation in some other areas it. He pointed out that the investments of the United States of America did not at the level required in the last year as a result of the status quo there. These statements came on the sidelines of the "trade exchange between Iraq and the United Arab Emirates", which was launched recently in Dubai and is the official conference the first of its kind between the two countries. The Conference was attended by more than 140 Iraqi businessmen and people representing 400 international companies operating In the UAE, met to discuss the two investment opportunities in Iraq today. The company said international exhibitions of the Organization of the event that the conference aims to create an atmosphere that will allow for businessmen of the two countries converge and discuss investment opportunities and trade exchange and the possibility of making use of industrial growth is happening in Iraq. Focused words speaker in the conference on the aim of such a conference, which is an opportunity for the formation of a network of relations between businessmen in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and lighting on the investment opportunities available in Iraq in various sectors, notably agriculture, power generation and information technology, construction and building, especially after the issuance of the investment law, the new Iraqi in October last year. He called Al Mamoun Alaloni, governor of Anbar, "investors and the private sector to seize the opportunities available today in Iraq, especially in the Anbar province, and learn from the experience in the UAE Activating the role of the private sector. He pointed out that Iraq was absent for a long time the international arena, and needs to use his energies diverse human, geographical and economic even regain its position. Alaloni He pointed out that the possibility of investment in all economic sectors in the province of Anbar, in agriculture and industry, cheese, milk, Allhomat, in the industrial areas where witness Anbar up many factories specialized in cement, ceramics, phosphate and various construction industries. The Anbar witnessed in the last year, launching 150 projects worth 180 million dollars had been disbursed by the development projects of which $ 96 million came from maintenance allocations. Undervalued Alaloni than the combined some of the media of exaggeration in the transfer news. He spoke Namir Jamil, head of the Anbar work on the economic and geographic factors and human resources available in Anbar, which is the third of the size of Iraq and has a population of over one and a half million people, and there are millions of Aldenomat arable land produced in the light of the provision of all the ingredients necessary for the initial development of this sector and investment. For his part, The Iraqi businessman Sadiq Fadel, Chairman of the Chamber, the American branch of Iraq, the goal of the American Chamber in Iraq is to improve the quality of relations between American companies and the private sector in Iraq, pointing out that the chamber American presence in Iraq is comprised of more than 400 member Iraqis, and to hand it independent of the American government-funded them. Ja'neh said of Baljit Vohra, chairman of the Economic at the American embassy in Baghdad that the United States has contributed a new investment law that was issued last October, also helped Iraq to join the World Trade Organization, which is making an effort to pay the economic wheel in this country and to promote investment opportunities in it. The full explanation Kilani, the former Finance Minister, the advantages of the new investment law, pointing out that paved the way for the private sector to take its role as actor on the Iraqi arena, and play an important role in attracting hard currency to Iraq with his mind on the anti-money laundering law to keep pace with international standards, as well as the new law, the issue of rent long-term, which has been modified from 30 years to 50 years, and the question of the rights of the Iraqi employment and labor. He pointed out that the law exempted for the time being the possibility of investment in the oil sector but said that he would discuss the issues within the sector A special law in the Iraqi Parliament because it needs to be stability. He noted al-Salam, Deputy Director General for International Affairs and the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, Iraq's accession to the World Trade Organization, saying that it would open the markets of 150 countries in the world in front of Iraqi industries, which will prove to the world that Iraq has attractive investment climate. One speaker pointed out at the conference that the volume of trade exchange amounted to Iraq in 2005-five R. 46 billion dollars, and that the growth rate of GDP rose by 25% in 2004 and reached 6 R. 30% in the year 2005. He pointed out that the most important trading partners of the strategic Iraq is the United States of America and Italy and Spain.

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Witness the free zones in various countries around the world considerable momentum, coinciding with the opening of global trade and the expansion of investment, and the trend towards the abolition of any limits or restrictions can be impediments to the movement of trade and growth accelerated

There is no doubt that the free zones play an important role in attracting investments and Arab capital, foreign and development of domestic industries and the transfer of technology and creation of employment opportunities and rehabilitation, and had the greatest impact on the economies of these countries locally and globally as well as their impact on the operations of WTO. According to recent studies on free zones, the number of such zones around the world amounted to about five thousand area, while the volume of trade carried out through the nearly $ 400 billion. Among free zones exist in the world, 35 are sponsored by the 13 Arab countries on the best-known of all the Jebel Ali in Dubai. It is estimated by economists, trade volume Arab free zones around eight billion dollars Replacing the 'Jebel Ali' to a large proportion of them. The free zones are distinct pattern of investment, and represents an important mechanism for increasing exports, and increase the national output to the creation of new job opportunities because of its many advantages, the most important of the direct correlation outside world and the availability of land complete Facilities and infrastructure, in addition to dealing with privacy in terms of customs and monetary aspects and others related to the movement of goods into and departure, which would allow a great deal of freedom in transactions that would attract capital. The advantages and incentives and has investments in the free zones many of the incentives and advantages, including that there should be no restrictions on the nationality of capital, and the freedom to choose the legal form of the draft, as well as the freedom to determine the prices of products and the proportion of the profits, in addition to the exemption of capital assets and production requirements, exports and imports from the customs duties and other taxes and fees, and granted the existing projects in the free zones, a number of safeguards, including the inadmissibility of nationalized or confiscated or impounded or the expropriation of their properties from non-judicial methods. For the free zones of great importance in the world, they contribute to the achievement of abundance and resettlement of technical and strategic storage of the goods and support export and attracting foreign investments and the requirements for success. The free zones in the world today one of the tools that contribute to the economic development of the national economy through the establishment of industries Export and to provide employment opportunities and contribute to trade liberalization and economic openness in particular that the world was witnessing an acceleration of the economic openness and open markets and the elimination of tariff barriers, and here are the crossing gates of the global economy and windows to export to a market economy, philosophy is the free zones play originally on the basis of the liberation of activity in these areas from taxes, customs duties and trade restrictions and providing facilities and services to compete. Economic model and in spite of the challenges facing the attempts to create the market strong global competition, are still Free Zones able to be a model advanced economic terms of creation of job opportunities and attracting for foreign direct investment and support of the the export and transfer of technology, management and development, industry and services, also working towards the development of trade in general, transit trade in particular, and to provide employment and contributing direct and indirect in the development and the development of areas and regions, which are mounted by the Free Zones, in addition to revitalize the different economic sectors associated actively Free Zones, such as the transport and Communications and Harbors and insurance

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Thanks Charmed! There is no place like home!

The US government was involved in drawing up the law through a consultancy firm, the British weekly said.
The early draft, circulated in English to oil companies in July 2006 and leaked to the newspaper, would offer oil companies vastly better terms than the industry norm for investing in the war-torn country.
The production-sharing agreements (PSAs) would allow oil giants to sign 30-year contracts for extracting Iraqi oil.
Under PSAs, the state retains legal ownership of its oil but gives a share of the profits to companies that invest in infrastructure and in operating the wells, pipelines and refineries.
The Independent on Sunday said that under the draft law, oil companies could recoup 60 to 70 percent of revenue until initial costs had been recovered, which compares to around 40 percent usually, the newspaper said.
Following that, oil firms could be allowed to keep up to 20 percent of profits, rather than the more usual 10 percent, the weekly wrote, citing experts.
Experts said that oil giants would not descend immediately on Iraq, preferring to wait for the country to regain some level of stability, while only small, maverick producers would risk activity there in the short term.
The bill would allow for the first foreign exploitation of Iraqi oil reserves since the industry was nationalized in 1972.
The introduction of PSAs would also be a first in the Middle East.
Oil accounts for 95 percent of the Iraqi economy, the newspaper said.
Iraq’s oil reserves, estimated at 115 billion barrels, are the third largest in the world, behind Saudi Arabia and Iran, which both tightly control their industries through state-owned companies, it commented.
Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Iraqi production has fallen from 3.5 million barrels per day to two million nowadays.
The United States and its allies have consistently denied accusations that the war in Iraq was fought to secure oil supplies.
Iraq could open oil reserves to foreign firms

Restarting Iraq's Factories
When then-viceroy Paul Bremer took over the civilian administration of Iraq in 2003, he had an intricate plan to transform the state-owned socialist economy into a beacon of free enterprise in the heart of the Middle East.

Central to his plan was the sale of some 200 state-owned enterprises to the highest bidder to bring in fresh capital, streamline operations and boost profits. That in turn would drive the rest of the economy.
The ambitious "shock therapy" plan failed. Foreign investors could not be lured into the uncertain political and security situation in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis' livelihoods depended on the state-run manufacturing plants.

Not a single state-owned enterprise has been transitioned to private ownership.

All of the 193 state-owned enterprises have sat idle since 2003 with the exception of a single heavy industrial plant not far from Baghdad. More than 500,000 Iraqis, however, are on the payrolls of the idle factories, drawing some $800 million a year off the already strained Iraqi budget, according to a study prepared for the U.S. State Department.

Three years on, a small Pentagon office has conceded the ideological battle for now and is attempting to restart the state-owned enterprises. The idea now is not to remake Iraq's economy, but rather to put the Iraqi people back to work.

Two dozen Defense Department employees, contractors and manufacturing industry executives traveled to Baghdad Saturday to begin the process.

Paul Brinkley, the director of the task force to improve business and stability operations in Iraq, told reporters the goal is to jump start Iraq's stalled economy, re-employ thousands of workers, and hopefully drain the financial lure of insurgent attacks. U.S. officials report that Iraqis are being paid $50 to $300 to set roadside bombs.

Brinkley's office was originally directed to de-bug U.S. contracting rules in Iraq, to remove the red tape that keeps Iraqi forms from winning U.S.-funded reconstruction contracts. The former chief of U.S. military forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, brought Brinkley and his team to one of the idle state-owned factories last year. It was immediately clear the impact restarting industry would have on both the economy and security. The task force was born in May 2006.

Brinkley has assessed more than 30 state-owned enterprises and selected the first 10 to be restarted. They are geographically dispersed throughout the country -- most of them in high-threat areas -- and run the gamut from rubber and cement manufacturing to fertilizer, phosphates, automotive and pharmaceuticals. They are in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul, Sinjar and AL Qaim near the Syrian border, Bayji, Najaf and Taji.

Brinkely asked that the specific locations and names of the factories not be published for security reasons. They are likely to be targeted by insurgents or militias, he said.

Despite the violence in many parts of Iraq, Brinkley believes the factories may be being protected.

"We have factories in areas of great unrest that have not been looted," he said. "What we think is chaotic is actually controlled. Someone has made it clear: don't touch that factory."

Brinkley acknowledges the security risk.

"From a security perspective, an Iraqi worker who finds out his job is back ... knows better than anybody what risks he is taking by going back to work. We have an obligation to give him that opportunity back," Brinkley said. "The alternative is to do nothing."

The plan is to make a minimal capital investment, about $5 million, to ramp up the factories beginning this month.

"I don't want U.S. funds spent on this. I want Iraqi's money spent on this," he said.

Some can be restarted almost immediately; others will take three to six months to become workable again.

The next step is to create demand for the factories' products by having the U.S. Defense Department place orders for items it is already buying in the region and importing into Iraq. Cement for roads, blast walls and other reconstruction projects is a likely first order, Brinkely said. The Pentagon is spending $4 billion a year just buying products to use in Iraq. He hopes to funnel about $1 billion of that into the Iraqi economy through direct orders with the state-owned enterprises in 2007.

By the end of 2007, if all 10 enterprises are running again, some 11,000 Iraqis will be put back to work."When an Iraq doesn't have a job there is an exponential impact on their livelihood," Brinkely explained.

The typical American worker supports four people. In Iraq, a worker usually supports 13 people, he said.

Brinkley is also asking U.S. firms to place orders with Iraqi enterprises so to connect Iraq into the global supply chain. Already Caterpiller and Dow Chemicals have expressed interested."I've been almost humbled by the reaction," he said.

He also hopes there will be a cascading effect of jobs created around the state-owned enterprises - small machine shops, supplies stores, restaurants and services for the thousands of newly employed.

Brinkley has a permanent team of 35 that rotates in an out of Baghdad every two weeks, with more than 20 scheduled to join soon.

Analysis: Restarting Iraq's Factories | Iraq Updates

Talabani headed a ministerial delegation to the signing of the security and economic



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.Arrive at noon today to Damascus, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the head of an official delegation comprising four ministers and members of the 20th and heads of parliamentary blocs in Iraq. It is planned that President Bashar Al-Assad held a reception for the President formally Talabani, string, which the Iraqi national anthem in Damascus for the first time in a quarter-century. Co reviews a guard of honor, before the meeting to hold formal talks in the Syrian presidential palace. Iraqi sources said told «life» yesterday that the delegation accompanying the Talabani comprising ministers of State for Foreign Affairs, Rafie Issawi and Water Resources Abdulatif Rashid and the Interior and Commerce who is Jawad Abdel Sudanese farmer. The delegation includes the conciliator will spring the Iraqi national security adviser, which is being subjected to widespread criticism in the Syrian circles. Also joining the delegation Fakhri Karim, the Iraqi president's envoy, who was transferred last week to a letter from Talabani Assad in preparation for the official visit, the first head of an Iraqi since severing diplomatic relations in 1980. He is due to meet Iraqi President large number of Syrian officials during his stay, which lasts a week. According to Iraqi sources signing of a number of economic and security agreements between Damascus and Baghdad to enhance cooperation in the areas of counter-terrorism and border control and the development of economic and trade cooperation. The Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallim, visited Baghdad between 19 and November 21 last (November). The countries resumed diplomatic relations on December 11 last (December), which were exchanged raise flags in Damascus and Baghdad.



What did they sign?

النشيد العراقي يُعزف اليوم في دمشق للمرة &#157

Thanks Charmed!!! What a news posting machine you are! I sure missed you and everybody at Rol. Good to be back!! Hopefully Marek and company has finally found out what the problems were and fixed them permanently! Thanks to Marek and company for working so hard for all of us!

worf

Originally Posted by CharmedPiper

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...727F811693F%7D

Lukoil set to revive huge Iraq oil deal - reports

Last Update: 11:38 AM ET Jan 14, 2007

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Russia's OAO Lukoil Holdings (LKOH.RS) is poised to ressurect a $4 billion contract it signed with Saddam Hussein's regime to develop one of Iraq's largest oil fields, The Independent of Sunday reported.
U.S.-based ConocoPhillips (COP) will also benefit as it has a stake in the joint venture with Lukoil to develop the West Qurna-2 field, the paper said.
Iraq's long-awaited hydrocarbon law contains a provision that states that existing contracts to develop oil fields remain valid, it added.

This is a big one for the Kurds. I believe this is one of the elements that have been holding up the HCL

He said the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the new strategy in Iraq will be successful. جاء.This came during a press conference held today, Monday, in Baghdad with the commander of the American forces in Iraq, Lt. General Tom Phen.

".Khalilzad added that "Washington was keen to maintain security and stability in Iraq, which put security and services of their priorities in the current phase."

من".For his part, Phen said that "American forces will hand over security duties to Iraqi forces in the event of their ability to maintain security in general around the country."

" .At the same time pointing out that "the militias will not play the role of the state in Iraq was not allowed to bear arms and hands will be limited only by Iraqi forces."

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Translated version of http://www.newsabah.com/paper.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&ca tid=20

Economic : Barham Salih will meet a number of British companies


Baghdad : Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed
The Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the Iraqi oil, Dr. Barham Ahmed Salih number of meetings with oil companies in London, a few days before the submission of the draft law of oil to the House, where it is expected to have the lion's share in Iraqi oil.

This will be the transfer of oil concessions to the oil companies of the world thirty years, for the operation of oil fields that had been attached to national resources during the past era, specifically in 1972.
He was the completion of the preparations for the final draft of the law, which awaits a vote by Parliament, all parties have agreed on a common formula in the draft.
He had been a prelude to the agreement between the Iraqi parties before starting the New Year holiday is expected quick and positive results of the Council, which strengthens the possibility of this law and voting.