Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 28/03/10 - 21/06/10

China's Shanghai works on $1 bln power deal in Iraq

(Reuters) - China's top power equipment maker Shanghai Electric is moving ahead with a $1 billion power-generating plant to boost Iraq's electricity capacity by 1,320 megawatts, officials said on Saturday.

The planned steam power plant in the town of Zubaidiya near the city of Kut, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Baghdad, is seen as one of the biggest power projects in the country, where intermittent electricity is one of the public's top complaints.

Seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq's national grid still only supplies a few hours of power each day. Iraq's dilapidated infrastructure has been hit hard by years of war, insurgency attacks and underinvestment. The project, which includes purchasing and installing four steam turbines, each with a capacity of 330 MW, will provide Iraq with a big power increase over the next four years, both Iraqi and Chinese officials said. Work to install those units started earlier this month and the first unit is expected to operate after three years.

"It is a big project, it is considered one of the biggest power plants in Iraq," said Hameed al-Ibrahimi, an official in the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, who is in charge of the project. "Iraq is in need of (any) 100 MW," he told Reuters at the project's site.

The Ministry of Electricity puts Iraq's available power capacity at 9,000 MW, and installed capacity at 11,000 to 12,000 MW. Demand is estimated to be at least 12,000 MW. The idea for the project is almost 10 years old. When Iraq's first talks with China's Shanghai started, it was to build a factory to manufacture power turbines. The plan was put on hold for years due to economic sanctions imposed on Iraq followed by years of bloodshed unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

As security conditions slowly improve across the country, Iraq has revived and revamped the project. It signed the contract with Shanghai in 2007, but it was again delayed due to security concerns and unavailability of land for the plant. Now work is ramping up with a handful of Chinese engineers and staff already on the ground as a camp is being built to accommodate the expected influx of workers over the next few months.

The plan is to get at least 100 more Chinese workers in the coming two to three weeks as the pace of work increases, said Cao Linjun, the site manager from Shanghai Electric, dismissing security concerns as an obstacle.

"If I feel afraid, I will not come here," he said during a visit to the plant, which was protected by three security units, an emergency police unit, an army unit along with other guards.

Iraq is trying to shake off the legacy of years of violence and economic decline by luring foreign investment and expertise to help it rebuild. Violence has fallen sharply in the last two years, but daily bombs and killings are still common.

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/e...entId=10512868

Airlines manager: if it is our mandate to resolve the problem with Kuwait to have avoided the dissolution of the company

said Iraqi Airways Director of the struggle of good if the Iraqi delegation carrier formally and give some authority, to adopt the theme of Kuwaiti debt and find solutions to resolve non-resolution of the company.

The good in connection with the Agency for the independent press (Iba) that the decision to liquidate fonts sad and heavy heart, like a person of his son killed in front of his eyes without having had any trick to prevent this as he put it.

He said that the Iraqi government was forced to take the liquidation decision in legal terms what the outcome of the issue of Kuwaiti reparations, expressing the wish to reinstate the Kuwaiti side to consider the issue of compensation and to take into consideration the relations between the peoples of Iraq and Kuwait for many years.

Hassan said the Cabinet decision be noted that the rapid formation of a committee to establish a joint venture of air transport are not linked in any way the company earlier in the new structure and completed in accordance with the regulations of the carrier's official onion.

He pointed out that the judicial decision, sought British Airways Kuwait narrow down the carrier Iraqi significantly by not allowing the Iraqi planes to refuel in some European capitals that implement these decisions.

And around the resort to the judicial activities to resume debt issue, Hassan said that the judicial process requires considerable effort and can be extended for many years, especially a carrier that Iraq did not being delegated to adopt this theme, noting that Iraqi Airways linked to the state and could not take any decision without the obligation of contexts official.

The Iraqi government has taken the decision to dissolve the Iraqi Airways after the worsening crisis with Kuwait on the compensation demanded by the pretext of the losses suffered after the invasion in 1990

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...onomy&id=25937

Iraqi Businessmen Union Decides to establish an advisory office within the European Union

Union decided to Iraqi businessmen to establish an advisory office within the European Union to boost their work in addressing economic issues.

And the transfer of the National Center for information about the President of the Federation of Iraqi businessmen willing Blibl satisfaction that the Board of Directors of Union agreed during the meeting on the establishment of an advisory office functions confined to the research and studies, training, and feasibility studies, and to address various economic issues

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...onomy&id=25939

Iraqi police recover 1.3 million dollars from bank heist

Police investigating a bank robbery near Najaf in southern Iraq have recovered 1.3 million dollars of the 5.5 million stolen and made one arrest, a local official said on Saturday.

The theft on Thursday evening was the second major Iraqi heist this week, coming just two days after masked gunmen swooped on jewellers in Baghdad in a rampage that left nine dead, including a policeman and one of the assailants.

"We found 1.5 billion Iraqi dinars (1.3 million dollars) buried near the house of one of the criminals involved in the Meshkhab operation," said Luay Yassiri, the head of Najaf provincial council's security committee.

Yassiri added that police had arrested a man in connection with the robbery at state-owned Rafidain bank's branch at Meshkhab, south of Najaf city, out of six suspected gang members who took part.

The robbery took place after one of the guards at the branch put sleep-inducing drugs into the other guards' tea and let in the gang, who then entered the bank's safe and took the money, Yassiri said.

The branch was apparently holding a large amount of cash to pay out salaries at the end of the month.

On Tuesday, gunmen robbed gold and jewellery shops along a street in southwest Baghdad and shot the owners and staff as well as a policeman, killing eight.

Crime has been on the rise as the level of the insurgency in Iraq has fallen off from its 2006 and 2007 highs. Security officials say insurgents may be carrying out such robberies to obtain much-needed income to fund operations.

Eight police guards were killed in another major bank heist in the Iraqi capital last July. The pre-dawn raid also on a branch of Al-Rafidain bank saw the robbers make off with 3.8 million dollars, but the sum was later recovered.
In Iraq's biggest-ever hold-up, robbers stole 13.5 million dollars from a Rasheed Bank branch in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, in January 2005.

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...20bank%20heist

Middle-class Iraqis pack up all their hope

When American tanks tore through her neighborhood, ripping up the roads as they uprooted a nation, she stayed put, refusing to move abroad like many of her wealthy friends.

#forumnumcom h6 {width:250px;float:left;margin:18px 10px 0 0;padding:10px 0 15px;border-bottom:none;border-top:9px solid #888}

When the black-clad gunmen took over her religiously mixed west Baghdad neighborhood, turning it into a killing field, she wouldn't let them drive her out of the country she loved.

And even when they killed her husband, gunning him down as he left work, she fought through her grief, staying in Iraq and hoping for better times.

But as a post-election political deadlock threatens to pull Iraq back into violence and uncertainty, Ibtisam Hamoody has had it. Within months, the 56-year-old former engineer and women's rights activist plans to take her savings, her family heirlooms and the youngest of her three daughters and settle in Jordan or Syria.

"I know what's going on. It's not possible for there to be a good outcome," she said. "This time, I know it's going to be worse than before."

Over the last 30 months of relative security and economic progress, Iraq's middle class and intelligentsia had emerged from the shadows of war and exile, strutting around town without head scarves or cruising through gleaming new shopping districts.

But now, as they watch the camp of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose allies control the nation's security apparatus, jostle with that of Ayad Allawi, backed by some of the same Sunni Arabs who support the insurgency, they are preparing to dash back into hiding.

Already, the crisis has changed the character of a country bristling with hope just a few months ago, not least, Iraqis say, because the imminent drawdown of U.S. troops might create a vacuum that will leave the political drama festering for years.

Years of immense suffering have also conditioned Iraqis to brace for the worst, if only to protect themselves from disappointment.

"We all hope that things will not go back to what we were facing before," Wahid Thani, 43, an engineer at the Housing Ministry, said as he spent an afternoon at a friend's snack shop. "But the indications we are witnessing suggest that we will face a bad situation again. We are pessimistic because of the things we are seeing. The disputes are like infinity, and can never be solved."

Before the crisis, as middle-class families crowded newly refurbished parks with their children and secular-minded young women walked alone through the streets, many dared to dream of a day when Iraq was safe and prosperous, like its richer neighbors to the south and north. But each breach of security chisels away at that progress, revealing the fragility of the gains achieved since late 2007, when the violence began to subside.

That violence has begun to rise again. The number of civilians killed in Iraq jumped 50 percent from March to April, according to government statistics. On May 10, nearly 100 people died in a day of bombings and shootings that was the worst in Iraq since last year. A campaign of assassinations against Sunni Arab clerics has perplexed officials who wonder whether al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents or Shiite militants might be involved. One was beheaded last Monday at his own mosque. And on Wednesday night, a car bomb killed six and wounded at least 10 at a restaurant in the town of Musayyib, south of Baghdad.

Whether Iraq slides back into the despair or manages to limp forward, the current gloom threatens to undermine what little faith Iraqis had in the country's future, say dozens of Iraqis across the country.

"We made sacrifices," said Hassan Raheem Rahoun, 40, a hairstylist who moved back to Iraq from Libya two years ago and is now considering leaving again. "We put our lives on the line when we went to the polls and voted for the most appropriate person. It didn't work. We gambled in a game and none of us will win, except those sitting in the Green Zone," Baghdad's fortresslike administrative center that houses much of Iraq's squabbling political class.

The political elite are well aware of the middle-class backlash against them, and some have begun to agitate for the politicians to move forward on forming a government.

"Their responsibility ended on the 7th of March," election day, Leila Khafaji, a former lawmaker and member of the Shiite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, said of the country's educated and middle class. "They are very responsible and very intelligent to go and do what they have to do, but they didn't see the fruit."

Every Wednesday, the party's leader, Ammar Hakim, meets with middle-class constituents in an effort to gauge their opinions and assuage their fears, Khafaji said. But the crisis has begun to change people's economic calculations for the future.

Bagher Sheikh, a respected painter whose works fetch as much as $2,000 in Iraq and more abroad, returned to Iraq just before the U.S.-led invasion and stayed through the insurgency, the sectarian warfare and political crises. But he's now decided to leave, in large part because he doesn't believe the government will be able to improve the schools to properly teach his two young daughters.

"I felt like I belonged to this country," he said in his gallery and studio, Dream, its walls filled with oil paintings of nudes and landscapes.

"I had hope for this country that it would work," he said, pressing his hands against the sides of his head. "Now I have none. We tried to change the government by an election, and the same people come back. It's a sign that the constitution is a failure."

Signs that these skilled, educated and middle-class Iraqis are withdrawing from public life abound. Hamoody, the widow, who heads the Democratic Forum for Civil Dialogue and Human Rights, said she's come to believe that speaking out for the rights of Iraq's women and disadvantaged is pointless when the political situation is so intractable.

"It's impossible for the situation to be good," she said in broken but fluent English. "I have met almost all of the politicians, and if you want my opinion, I would let them all go out of the country. I believe we need one like Saddam Hussein. He's the only one who can fix the Iraqi people."

In addition to dashing hopes in Iraq's democratic experiment, the political stalemate threatens the country's weak economy. A trickle of foreign and domestic investment has slowed to a halt, as Iraqi and international companies wait out the political storm before making strategic decisions.

"The political situation now in Iraq casts a shadow on the general aspects of Iraqi life, and commercial traffic witnesses a standstill and freeze like the Iraqi political situation," said Salem Mohammed Obeidi, 40, an Education Ministry official in the northern city of Kirkuk.

Iraqis with money in their pockets are spending less, saving it for a potentially bleak future. Many of those who are staying have stopped traveling, going out or making long-term plans.

"More than two months have passed, and people don't see any signs of hope or good things from those for whom they voted," said Abdul-Razzaq Khalaf, 49, owner of a currency exchange in the southern port city of Basra, which was struck May 10 with its worst violence in years.

On Baghdad's Sanaa Street, the capital's main electronics market, vendors complain that customers at ministries and businesses who used to buy desktop computers, laptops and surveillance cameras have stopped placing orders.

Commercial districts are less crowded than they were before, as wary families opt to spend evenings close to home amid the jump in violence.

Shop owners burdened with surplus inventory chain-smoke and fret while huddling with colleagues along sidewalks bare of customers.

"Now the street is afraid of the return of sectarianism," said Ahmad Mohammad, 36, a computer and telecommunications specialist who works at a vendor of Canon photocopy machines, where sales have dropped by two-thirds since a few days before the election. "I can describe the situation as a time bomb. You don't know when it's going to explode."

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...NEWS?p=1&tc=pg

Experts cautious about unrealistic oil predictions
Baghdad 'overconfident' after lucrative deals, but lacks infrastructure and expertise

Iraq's signing of lucrative oil deals with international companies in the past few years has made it overconfident and for Baghdad to say it will "achieve in seven years what Saudi Arabia managed to achieve in 70 years" is not an accurate or realistic assumption, experts say.

"Actually, it is realistic if we have the [proper] infrastructure, which we don't have," Luay Al Khateeb, Executive Director at the London-based Iraqi Energy Institute, said.
"It would have been practical if we had the qualifications. But our [qualifications] are limited, and some of our [veteran experts] have reached the retirement age," Khateeb, head of the independent non-profit institute formed in 2008, added.

"It, also would have been practical if the demand and supply (in international markets) can take it," Khateeb told Gulf News on the sidelines of a meeting on Doing Business in Iraq held in Dubai recently.

Practical solutions

"There are conditions that determine what is realistic and what is not. There is nothing impossible, but there are conditions," he added.

Iraq is one of Opec's largest oil producing members. It is also among the world's top five for its proven oil reserves.

Saudi Arabia is the top exporter and has production of nearly eight million barrels per day (bpd), while Iraq's current production is around 2.4 million bpd. Iraq's oil production comes from "only 25 out of 85 known Iraqi fields," according to a study Khateeb presented at the meeting. And of that "83 per cent of historic production comes from Rumaila and Kirkuk" oil fields.

With more spending on upgrading Iraq's oil sector, and more foreign investment in that sector, some experts believe it would be realistic for Iraq to achieve the level of production of six to seven million bpd by 2020, if Opec continues to sustain its fair price oil policy.

Foreign investments in Iraq are not allowed in exploration and production. However, foreign companies are allowed to take part in service-related fields, Iraqi sources noted.

Divided returns

The Iraqi government proposed a few years ago a draft oil law that would open the door to foreign investments in the oil industry. It will also divide the oil returns equally among the country's 18 provinces.

However, the draft law sparked a great controversy. It was also opposed by many Iraqi parties, including the Kurds who describe the new draft as "unconstitutional", as it deprives the regions from controlling their oil fields and puts the final word in the hands of the Iraqi government in Baghdad. The Kurds have their own autonomous region in northern Iraq, which has many producing oil fields.

Scores of Iraqi experts, moreover, opposed the draft law, saying it had many loopholes that could benefit foreign investors at the expense of national interests. The draft law, announced in early 2007 has been shelved since then.

However, experts including Khateeb said there is a need to endorse the draft law, adding that it should be in harmony with the federal formula of the new Iraq as the constitution stipulates.

The role of the Iraqi National Oil Company should be redefined, and it should not "be treated as the spoiled child", Khateeb said.

Iraqi authorities should take all necessary steps to move away from the bureaucracy that prevailed in the past, he added.

"Bureaucracy" is an entrance to corruption," Adnan Blebil, Director General of the Iraqi Civil Authority said. It is a major threat to Iraq, he added. However, it can be dealt with a "master plan" for reconstruction that would specify the coming steps and it would also "fight corruption", Blebil added.

http://gulfnews.com/business/feature...tions-1.634132

Rebuilding Iraq: The century's deal
Iraq is blessed with natural resources. It has water, oil, gas and sulphur, among many others. It also has adequate human resources. All that the country needs now is safety and security, and others to believe in its future

‘Rebuilding Iraq: The century's deal'. The headline, which appeared in an Arabic-language newspaper shortly after the 1990-91 Gulf war ended, summarised it all.

Iraq, which has an abundance of natural resources, could offer investors numerous rebuilding contracts. This after the Americans had warned that they would, through the US-led multinational alliance, take the country back to the pre-industrial era.

Twenty years later, the circumstances look different. But the story has not changed much. Lack of total security and stability today is still obstructing the needed normal flow of investments into Iraq from different countries, including Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Yet, this doesn't negate the fact that Iraq is an un-utilised treasure for investments, say experts and economists.

"Iraq: the prize that outweighs all risks," was chosen as a title for a paper presented at a conference on doing business in Iraq that was held in Dubai recently. The situation in Iraq has changed a lot since the 2003 war. The whole political regime of the country was changed and it was torn apart.

One of the characteristics of the grand "prize" is the fact that it has a "$600 billion (Dh2.2 trillion) investment requirement," Luay Al Khatteeb, Executive Director at the Iraqi Energy Institute and author of the paper, explained.

Other features include nationwide reconstruction, long-term opportunities, constitutionally pro-market economy and plentiful oil and gas.

So far, the biggest chunk of investment money has been pumped into the more stable and secure northern region of Kurdistan. According to Iraqi Kurdish estimates, foreign direct investment stands at $12.5 billion.

However, things have started to change slowly.

Security improvement

"At the beginning, the trend was to invest in Kurdistan because of the security situation. However, the rest of Iraq is equally important," Hadeel Hassan, senior Associate at the Baghdad's office of Al Tamimi & Company law firm, explained to Gulf News. The company organised the Dubai conference on Iraq.

"The central government in Baghdad is indispensable and there are also [vital cities and areas, namely] Kirkuk and Basra," she said. Both cities have giant oil fields that are essential to the Iraqi economy.

"There are bigger and wider investment opportunities all over Iraq," she added.

With an average crude oil production of 2.45 million barrels per day, Iraq is the third largest Opec producer. Iraq is also among the top five countries in terms of oil reserves. The country is also rich in phosphates and sulphur.

Foreign investment in oil extraction is not allowed in Iraq. However, foreign investment can be made in other oil-related services.

"Iraq is still the land of the century's deal, and it will continue to grow," Adnan Blebil, Director-General of the Iraqi Civil Authority, told Gulf News. "Today, we are looking for the necessities. The day will come when we will be looking for the unessential items, and the another day will come when we will be looking for the luxury things," he added.

With its nearly 30-million population, Iraq is a big market. It is also a "virgin" one. "All the country and all its economic sectors are virgin ones. Iraqi sectors need everything," Blebil added.

After the government implemented its "Law Enforcement Plan" in 2008, in which state security forces launched a campaign against illegal weapons and outlawed militias, the security situation started to improve.

"Even the security companies that had a presence in Kurdistan started heading towards Baghdad," Hassan said.

Changing economic circumstances

"A huge amount of investments are going into Iraq in the past 18 months," Rob Tolley, Director of Dubai-office of United Insurance Brokers Ltd, (UIP) pointed out.
UIP is among the insurance companies that are studying opening an office in Iraq in the coming few years, Tolley says.

Yet the image is still not that rosy.

Cost of protection and personal security could be many times over of what could be paid in other places other than Iraq. Knowing the country well is a must, according to security specialists.

While suicide attacks and insurgent bombings have tapered off in the past few years, local residents point to the fact that the attacks still taking place target Iraqis, a sign the attacks are political. In the past, the attacks targeted foreigners.

"Security is the capital of investment," said Jawhar Al Fahel, representative of Salah Al Deen province, in the Iraqi National Investment Authority.

Some projects carry a 10-year tax exemption, depending on the approval of the Iraqi Investment Commission. Under the commission's rules the exemption is usually applied to large projects in sectors such as health and energy.

But there is an increasing number of big foreign companies that are waiting for the right time to undertake projects in other parts of Iraq. Among them are UAE companies.

UAE companies

Two Emirati real estate and international investment companies, Al Maabar and Bloom, are close to signing contracts with the Iraqi National Investment Authority for two major housing projects in Baghdad and Karbala.

In late October 2008, the Abu Dhabi-based real estate investment company Al Maabar announced its plan to launch a $10 billion Al Rasheed Compound project in Baghdad. The project will cover 1,250 hectares in the centre of the city.

It comprises several key clusters including residential units, a commercial district, a technology centre, a hotel and hospitality district, health care and educational districts, and public facilities such as mosques and petrol stations. The company is backed by all four major Abu Dhabi developers: Aldar, Sorouh, Reem and Al Qudra. It was described at the time as the first real estate project on this scale to be undertaken in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

However, the cost of the project, which involves a mixed use complex comprising residential, commercial, health, hotels and entertainment, is expected to reach $20 billion, according to recent Iraqi press reports.

Growing interest

The Banks of Karbala project, a $28-billion project, will overlook Ar Razazah Lake, 15 kilometres west of Karbala, according to Iraqi press reports.

Other UAE companies are eyeing a third project, "The City of the Future", according to top investment officials. Several companies want to participate in the construction of 150,000 housing units as part of a project envisaging one million new houses nationwide, they added.

The total cost of the projects is an estimated $70 billion.

"UAE companies are the top companies investing in Iraqi real estate," said Sami Al Araji, chairman of the Iraqi National Investment Commission.

While UAE companies have also shown interest in other fields, Araji said, "talks are still in an early stage with the Investment Commission," and there will be announcements once results are reached.

He also alluded to other sectors, including energy, communications and banks. While some UAE companies already have a presence in Kurdistan, the negotiations underway are "on giant projects all over Iraq," Araji said.

Air and trade links

UAE airlines, meanwhile, have added Iraqi cities to their schedules and are planning more.

The two major UAE airlines are increasing their services. Abu-Dhabi's Etihad has daily flights to Baghdad, and Dubai's Emirates plans to follow suit starting July 1.

Before the end of the year, some reports predict, the budget airlines, Dubai-based flydubai and Sharjah-based Air Arabia, will join them.

Already Iraq is the UAE's second biggest Arab trade partner after Saudi Arabia and the 11th globally.

UAE exports to Iraq jumped 41 per cent last year to $4.24 billion and Iraq's exports to the UAE grew 952 per cent to $778 million, according to Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, UAE Minister of Foreign Trade.

Shaikha Lubna last week led a UAE delegation of representatives of nearly 40 companies to the inaugural UAE-Iraqi Businessmen's Forum, which was attended by many senior Iraqi officials. Shaikha Lubna said during her visit last week to Kurdistan that non-oil trade between the two countries increased 63 per cent from $3.79 billion in 2008 to $5.19 billion in 2009.

Turkey is Iraq's biggest trade partner, mainly Kurdistan, Al Fahel said.

With a volume of nearly $9 billion, Turkey tops the list of exporters to Kurdistan. Ankara also accounts for nearly 55 per cent of foreign companies registered in the region.

Asked about the importance of companies rather than governments in the field of investment, Khatteeb replied: "In developed countries, it is the market economy that leads. The private sector, and not politics, leads the developed countries."

http://gulfnews.com/business/feature...-deal-1.634147

Trade Show Touts Iraq's Business Potential
1st Infantry Division Headquarters
Story by 1st Sgt. David Bennett

BASRA, Iraq – Just like the promise tied to the sea of oil that resides below Iraq's surface, the potential for building new industries in the country is great, yet remains untapped.

That potential is not lost on the vendors from 73 companies that attended the Basra Iraq Trade Expo, a four-day international trade exhibition held at the Basra International Airport May 24-27. And while oil didn't overshadow conversations, there is no question that petroleum-related industries will drive Iraq's economy going forward.

One exhibitor, Gemak Food Industry Machinery & Trading Co., based in Ankara, Turkey, produces stainless steel tanks that are used by dairy farms, chemical plants and petroleum truck companies. It is in Iraq's fledging oil industry that Gemak hopes to generate future sales.

International oil companies, working with the Iraqi government, are currently scouting viable drilling sites. Aktan Aydogmus, a sales representative for Gemak's foreign trade division, said Gemak is looking at the opportunity to outfit tanker trucks with 50,000-liter, steel containers to hold petroleum products.

"Turkey is a neighbor of Iraq and we follow their industries," he said.

Another area with potential for growth is Iraq's currently meager agricultural capacity.

As Iraq's economy begins to pick up the pace, Gemak sees an opportunity to provide dairy and fruit producers the equipment to pasteurize milk and juice. Because such markets have yet to flourish, the time for the company to establish itself as a supply source is now.

Not only does the Turkish manufacturer supply industrial containers, Gemak also sells the equipment, materials and knowhow to customers to produce their own container lines.

The vendors — and what they had to offer — varied greatly from food service items to kitchen wares to construction materials. The international companies represented such countries as Egypt, Germany and Turkey.

The event enticed not only company representatives, but local residents who walked around the displays, sampling local teas and carrying company brochures.

Atilim Fairs & Organization Co., based in Istanbul, Turkey, organized the event. Yasemin Bulbuloglu, a project manager with Atilim, said the exhibition company promoted the event through advertising on radio and billboards, as well as by emailing potential vendors.

The turnout, she said, was beyond their expectations.

For vendors such as Gemak, expectation was perhaps the key sentiment surrounding the event and what market opportunities lie ahead.

"I think we can do business in Iraq," Aydogmus said.

http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=news...w.php&id=50503

Maliki to Kurdistan tomorrow to hold talks with the Kurdistan Alliance to form a government on the crisis

Being Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday, held talks with leaders of the Kurdistan Alliance in a visit to the territory.

The visit aims to hold talks on forming a new government, and try to get out of the crisis that prevails in the Iraqi elections since the end of the seventh of last March.

The leaders of the Kurdistan Alliance, said they will form the negotiating team heading to Baghdad after the certification of the Federal Court on the election results.

There have been negotiations between all political parties that a convergence of views, there is still a list of the crisis without any progress.

http://www.wasatonline.com/index.php...7-54&Itemid=99

Al-Dabbagh: Kuwait's demands compensation from Iraqi Airways unfair

Counting Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, Kuwait's demands for compensation from Iraqi Airways unfair, stressing that Baghdad will not pay the amount because they are committed.

Dabbagh stressed in an interview with the BBC reported Saturday that Baghdad was committed to continuing to buy aircraft, which have already been Iraqi Airways contracted before being dissolved by the Government, adding that the aircraft owned by the Government which will decide how to use it after receiving it.

Skinner also noted that the government would not pay any of the staff at the airline, pending the emergence of the new company, the office said Martino, a law firm, which tracks the issue of compensation from the Kuwaiti side, if not prevent the appearance of a new claim for damages.

http://non14.net/display.php?id=9052