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Lower Oil Prices Not to Hit Iraq’s Revenue Streams

The US and Iraqi governments have been working to attract business to the country by assuring potential investors that the country is stabilising.

“2008 oil revenues exceeded expectation,” said a spokesperson for Major General David Perkins, the US official in charge of strategic effects for the Multi-National Forces in Iraq.

“Surpluses will be used to mitigate the expected ‘09 challenges and they’ll continue to as the market adjusts.”

Speaking here on Thursday, Perkins said that incidents of violence have dropped from a weekly average of 180 per day to fewer than 20, a fall of over 75 per cent.

The Iraqi National Investment Council, along with investment councils in each of the 18 provinces, is looking for ways of attracting businesses and skilled workers.

Investment laws have been restructured to ease the process of obtaining property titles and authorities have removed squatters from houses of owners who abandoned their homes during violence, according to Perkins.

The NIC is also looking at developing a complex similar to Dubai’s Healthcare City, with a hospital, medical offices and living areas for staff and their families, but it is still in early stages of development. The investment councils are also looking at bringing tourists to areas like Baghdad, Najaf and Arbil.

According to the spokesperson for the US Army, there has been significant business interest from Siemens, General Electric (GE) and Caterpillar. Both Japanese and Chinese firms have shown interest and a Japanese delegation is scheduled to visit in the next few months. The NIC is trying to convert state owned enterprises like the national cement factory into private companies.

Still, many of the interested businesses are involved in heavy construction and infrastructure rather than commercial development. “It is literally the ground floor,” Perkins said.

emily@khaleejtimes.com