Thread: Archive - Latest News Think Tank - 15/01/09 - 04/05/09

Major laws still pending in Iraq Parliament

As the second legislative round is coming to an end, some major laws are still pending in Parliament including budget and gas and oil laws.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News...arliament.html

Lebanese Minister of Trade and Commerce to visit Baghdad soon

Lebanese Embassy Chargé D’Affaires in Baghdad Hazaa Sharif said that Lebanese Trade and Commerce Minister Mohammad Al Safadi will soon visit Baghdad. He added that Lebanon and Baghdad has special relations. Sharif stressed that this relation enhances trade and cultural exchange between the two countries. To that, he added that Lebanon wants to mark the decrease of violence acts in Iraq by boosting the relation and exchanging visits.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Economics...hdad-soon.html

Iran Foreign Minister visits Baghdad

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki flew in to Baghdad on Wednesday for talks with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari on boosting links between their two states, a foreign ministry official said.

Mottaki had left Tehran on Tuesday but his plane was forced to turn back from Baghdad because of high winds and dust storms, Zebari told AFP.

The two neighbours agreed in January to establish a high-ranking joint committee to improve cooperation and the "routine" trip of several days was part of that process, he said.

The two Shiite-majority countries fought a 1980-1988 war in which around one million people died. Ties have warmed considerably since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime by US-led forces in 2003.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Tehran last month to seek Iran's help in rebuilding the war-torn country.

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...sits%20Baghdad

Carnegie Endowment Report Urges Close, Comprehensive U.S. Role in Strengthening Federalism in Iraq

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Turkey can find themselves cooperating on political, economic and energy issues as part of a growing relationship that will bolster regional stability, Qubad Talabani, Representative of the KRG to the U.S., told a forum examining the future of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. "There are vast energy resources in Iraqi Kurdistan that can benefit both the Kurdistan Region and Turkey," Talabani said.

Talabani was speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at the unveiling of its new report "Preventing Conflict over Kurdistan," authored by Henri Barkey, a senior associate in the Carnegie Middle East Program. Barkey urged a strong leading and direct role by the United States, with regards to the Kurdistan Region and its relations with Baghdad, and Turkey, in order for the U.S. to disengage from Iraq.

"A new administration has to manage the Kurdish questions as a critical element of its Iraq disengagement policy," Barkey states in the report. "Washington must pay close attention to the many intertwined dimensions of the Kurdish question." The report goes on to say that prime importance should be to strengthen Federalism in Iraq, peacefully resolve the issue of Kirkuk and other disputed territories while at the same time building on improvements in relations between the KRG and Turkey.

"Washington must develop a comprehensive approach that recognizes and, where possible, leverages those linkages to help usher in a stable and prosperous future," Barkey added. He called for a special U.S. coordinator to address the outstanding issues and break down bureaucratic barriers that currently exist within the various U.S. government agencies. Talabani noted that one year ago Turkish troops were massing on the Iraqi border, primed to invade, but today, tensions between both sides have subsided and talks between the two are ongoing. Simultaneously, Turkish businesses continue to be by far the largest investors in the Kurdistan Region -- putting Turkey in the premier spot to reap further economic gains once federalism is fully implemented in Iraq, Talabani said.

But Talabani warned that the full implementation of federalism, as outlined in the Iraqi Constitution, is the key to avoiding further instability in Iraq. "Federalism has to be more than just a concept, and must be institutionalized," Talabani stressed. "That also means complete implementation of natural resources, and revenue sharing policies, and resolving the issue of disputed territories per the constitution of the country," he added.

Talabani embraced the report's recommendation of a more intense, better coordinated U.S. role in the Kurdistan Region. He urged the U.S. to quickly elevate U.S. government operations in the Kurdistan Region to full consular status. "The (U.S.) influence in commerce and development of civil society is immeasurable," Talabani said.

http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...=9259&Itemid=1

Iraq Issues Tenders To Drill 40 Oil Wells In South - Co

The South Oil Company, an affiliate of the Iraqi Oil Ministry, has issued tenders to drill 40 oil wells in the country's southern fields in a bid to address a sharp fall in southern oil production, the company said on its Web site Wednesday.

It has issued tenders to drill 10 oil wells in the Nahr Ben Umar field and 30 wells in the Majnoon field, each with estimated oil reserves of 12 billion barrels a day.

The tender documents set the closing date for companies to submit their offers by March 1, 2009.

The giant Nahr Ben Umar field is currently producing around 50,000 barrels a day and the South Oil Company wants to increase output to 70,000 barrels a day.

The Majnoon oil field is currently producing around 50,000 barrels a day and the company wants to upgrade its output to no less than 80,000 barrels a day.

An Iraqi oil industry source in Basra told Dow Jones Newswires last week that the country's crude oil production from its southern oil fields had slipped by 100,000-150,000 barrels a day over the last six months as maintenance problems and a lack of investment undermine the country's output capacity.

Iraq is currently producing around 1.8 million barrels a day from its southern oil fields, or 70% of the country's total crude oil production.

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/Ne...tle=Iraq%20Iss

Iraq considers $200 million plan to reverse oil-output decline

A high-level committee set up by Iraq's oil ministry to look into the
causes of a sharp fall in southern oil production has presented a $200 million accelerated action plan to try to reverse the trend amid expectations of a more than 100,000 b/d fall in production capacity from the south in 2009.

............The action plan also reveals that the committee's calculations point to the possibility of average declines of 100,000-150,000 b/d from southern fields in coming years if no action is taken. The target of the accelerated plan is to add 380,000-400,000 b/d of crude oil production capacity in the period 2009-2010 by using available surface facilities and drilling 100-110 new oil wells with the work to be done mainly by the Iraqi Drilling Company (IDC), which is committed to drilling 97 of the wells. The estimated cost of the plan was put at $200 million. Seven oil fields were selected to achieve the increase in production because of the presence within the structures of some redundancies in existing production facilities, so that the main task would be the drilling of new oil wells and workovers of already drilled wells. The plan sets incremental production targets from each of these fields as follows: 80,000 b/d from the giant Majnoon field; 70,000 b/d from the Nahr Umar field; 40,000 b/d from Ratawi; 40,000 b/d from Luhais; 40,000 b/d from Halfaya; 65,000 b/d from Nassiriya; and 25,000 b/d from the border field of Safwan on the Iraq-Kuwait border.

http://www.platts.com/Oil/News/83427...=rssheadlines0

Originally Posted by Seaview

Major laws still pending in Iraq Parliament

As the second legislative round is coming to an end, some major laws are still pending in Parliament including budget and gas and oil laws.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News...arliament.html

hahaha...what else is new?...isn't this the MO of this inept government ever since they came into power?.....i hope soon their own people see what is going on and will do something about it....nothing but corrupt,devious,inept,and stupid leaders....IMHO....Pat

Iraqi banks and the outlook for the next phase

Become the global financial crisis in the banking crisis as legibility, especially when the source of the emergence at the forefront of developed countries which the United States of America, where fraud allowed to pass through the plan and set up bogus investment value of approximately fifty billion dollars, including the victims of them was supposed they were not easy prey, including international banks and hedge funds and senior investors.

In the Arab world, including the activity of the bank has touched a diverse purposes of this crisis in terms of employment of foreign funds in projects dealing with the place of foreign banks, the crisis and the negative impact of these banks is linked to the size of their investments abroad, in other words, is an indirect impact.

In Iraq, our country, we have firmly in Ancone of us from the financial crisis, since the banking in Iraq, I still take in the stage of foundation was not only an international venture investments through the movements of the individual bank to another.

But the future is promising and expected under the circumstances, an indication of the Iraqi banks to take positive steps, especially since Iraq has the capacity to form a financial surplus if the act in the best how to exploit its resources in accordance with a directed economy. We will discuss the most important themes that give the Iraqi banks in the forward-looking vision and aspirations to play an active role in the world of banking.

First: the diagnosis of the economic crisis:
Focus of researchers and those interested in financial matters, and since the economic crises that occurred in Europe in 1992 and in Asia during the period 1997-1998 to study the factors causing the economic crises and banking in particular and the main reasons attributed to the absence of a mechanism of transparency in financial systems.

In this sense, consider the economic crisis (Economic Crises) through several categories, including the following in terms of classification:

1. Banking crisis: the banking crisis is defined as a crisis that account for cash to banks suffering from a lack of money in circulation and therefore reflected the decline in asset quality in the market value of the assets in the non-accurate measurements of supply and demand information on price fluctuations of the encumbered real estate and credit guarantees, and therefore created the banking crisis because of the difficulty of providing the necessary data required for evaluation and possible bankruptcy.

2. Currency crisis: The mean decline in the value of the currency exchange markets and there are several indicators to assess the related decline in the volume of changes in exchange rates and there are several indicators to assess the decline in the volume of changes in the prices of opportunities and the size of foreign exchange reserves and short-term interest rates.
And Iraqi banks in their current state may be far from these crises, as it deals with caution in credit financing and take it almost certainly guarantees that were not confirmed by the risk to be within the control.

II: Indicators of interaction in the banking environment to support projects in Iraq:
Banking in Iraq has not exercised for the period prior to fall within the meaning of them, but made mistakes in the dissolution of the oldest banking business, where the system is known as the consolidation of commercial banks in 1964 and Iraq has become dependent on one bank is the Bank of Iraq up to the year 1988 emerged such as the Bank of good government in the process of poor sections of the annexation to the Rafidain Bank and for the purposes of the new bank in the same Jacob as the saying goes.

By looking to the meaning of banking exerted by the Rafidain Bank were in compliance by the State Bamlaouat the sense that it did not contribute effectively to the development of the resources of the State, including the well-being of society is reflected in the amounts received by the country through oil sales, money is not a low deposit in foreign banks deposit to receive the benefits of low interest rates without having the task of investing in projects beneficial returns include the largest and most comprehensive mandate, it risks the previous regime after the war in Iraq under Chapter VII have been booking huge stocks, many of which went to pay compensation to our download section and the other is unknown so far.

Dwelling Needless to speak, even in the current 2009 budget, according to U.S. official sources that Iraq is allocated per 2.15 trillion dinars in compensation to Kuwait.

At the Matkdm Iraq and after passing difficulties that almost kill him, therefore is the role of banks, especially after leading the advancement of private sector banks that were also I think (32) commercial banks, these banks are rich with many investment opportunities, if properly exploited, where you can contribute to the financing of development programs and improve the quality of its assets, by way of banking facilities or as a partner in the capital projects, with work on the restructuring of services Fbsourp efficient, competitive and prove its worth working on the development of its members in terms of specialization and information technology.

On the other hand, is working on the application of international accounting standards and to exercise the maximum degree of transparency and disclosure, and highlights the financial and operating conditions which will provide them with real opportunities to enable them to deal with any assets has stalled, and the oversight role of leadership in the diagnosis of errors and the proper guidance in the exercise of the operations.

The Iraqi banks play a leading role leads to the activation of the performance of private sector activity in development, because economic development in which important elements are the state and the private sector and perhaps the funding is the basic mechanism in this area is no doubt that the role of banks in the funding is no longer in the secondary phase of the current Iraq.

The projects to be funded should be targeted Among projects proposed in this regard in which he has many of the scholars are the areas of industrial modernization and the creation of new parks in accordance with the needs of the country, according to a feasibility study carried out by specialist, such as universities and others, and that the matters need to promote the importance of the agricultural sector, industrial and real estate is needed here as one of the researchers says the Iraqis to the restructuring of banks, where the competence of banks, especially those activities and the availability of the space in soft loans to finance these sectors.
* An academic researcher

http://74.125.79.101/translate_c?hl=...Y77OIyXd07H9ZA

Minister of Trade: We are trying to build a free trade zone with Kuwait

With Iraq, Kuwait intends to establish a free trade area in Abdali, which is estimated to ensure the economic feasibility of a profit of up to half a billion dollars a month, got a final on a new batch of awards through the Public Authority for Assessment of Compensation of the United Nations, the value of U.S. $ 302 million. An official source in the body in a press statement that the compensation for the category of "E" of the claims of companies and entities other than the individual and the "F" of the claims of government and the environment.

The source added that this installment of compensation is within the resolution of the Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission No. 256 for the month of December of the year 2005 on the exchange rate of the rest of the system of compensation for them.

But apparently the heat of water policy began to put out the common interests, Kuwait has achieved revenues in the balance of trade with Iraq amounted to six billion dollars for 2008, predicted the Iraqi commercial attaché in Kuwait, Yasser Khuzaie in a press statement that this figure rising to almost double as a result of the presence of a huge project is in the free trade zone between Iraq and Kuwait to facilitate the transfer and the flow of goods, and facilitate the movement of road transport, which reached the number of flights from Kuwait to Iraq, the thousands.

Khuzai said that there is an initiative lead by the Kuwaiti side of the building project, and actually started the Kuwaiti side represented by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Commerce to establish a storage area of the Abdali area bordering Iraq.

Trade Minister Dr.. Sudanese farmer Abdul, said in a media statement, we a.s.p.ire to be a very strong relations with Kuwait, Kuwait to Iraq, a large port in terms of exports, is now possible to evolve as a significant trade. Sudanese minister said that the projects for the establishment of a free trade zone between Iraq and Kuwait, on the table, there are projects for the Kuwaiti investments in Iraq in a large number of areas, in the field of construction and reconstruction, in the area of trade, the area of warehouses, the area of cooperative societies, and other tourist areas, hotels and other.

Turning Sudanese in his debt, he said: the issue of debt there is the question of compensation to be taken by the United Nations to 5% of the imports of Iraqi oil and taken to compensate, and there's debt, we seek the truth to the understanding with the State of Kuwait, and Kuwait with the understanding of conditions in Iraq and over Iraq problems and the tragedies caused by the former regime, a long-not only on Iraq but on the State of Kuwait and the Kuwaiti people, and I think we will win solutions to the useful and satisfactory to both parties to enhance confidence between the two countries.

Sudan promised to free trade zones ****cdjap business, attract business investment to Iraq and the region, and the revival of commercial traffic between Iraq and neighboring countries, and we believe that the draft free trade zone and free trade zones on the border is a project economically viable and feasible and provides humanitarian services and large countries of Iraq and its neighbors.

Meanwhile, the chancellor said the trade at the Iraqi Embassy in Kuwait, Shafiq al-Tamimi, the date of the economic conference of Kuwait - Iraq's consider a set of investment projects made by the Kuwaiti businessmen will be this February.

Tamimi said in a press conference held the auspices of the Iraqi trade الملحقية in Kuwait, which had been inaugurated in the Jabriya, which points to a new stage of cooperation after 17 years of interruption.

Tamimi said: "We are convinced that the priority of Kuwait to enter the Iraqi market due to geographical proximity to several of Iraq and the historical ties between the two countries and two peoples.

http://74.125.79.101/translate_c?hl=...KjkWleknp4BiDg

Originally Posted by Seaview

Iran Foreign Minister visits Baghdad

Mottaki had left Tehran on Tuesday but his plane was forced to turn back from Baghdad because of high winds and dust storms, Zebari told AFP.

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...sits%20Baghdad

Where are those camels when you need them?