JEDDAH, 19 January 2004 — Two top Iraqi officials yesterday urged the Kingdom to invest in the new Iraq emerging from the ruins of Saddam Hussein’s misrule.
Despite the lack of stability in the country, the two delegates at the Jeddah Economic Forum had their eyes firmly focused on a future, stable Iraq.
In a session entitled “Iraq: The Next Regional Engine for Growth & Prosperity,” Iraqi Governing Council member, Samir Shakir Mahmood, and Iraqi Agriculture Minister Abdul Amir Raheema Al-Abood, emphasized that prosperity and peace in the region could not come about overnight and would require long-term planning as well as help from the international community.
“We are ready to work with you and we kindly request you to participate in rebuilding the country,” Mahmood said.
“Saudis do not need to go through any third party,” he said. “They are welcome as individuals or as companies.
“The border is open, come tomorrow,” he told the gathering.
“Saudi Arabia will be treated on an equal footing,” in the new Iraq, Mahmood pledged.
“The historic transformation that is taking place in my beloved country, the changes that are taking place now will have a profound effect not only in Iraq, but in the entire region and, I believe, in the world,” Mahmood said.
“Iraq has been shut off from the rest of the world for too long and now that it is coming out, Iraq will be increasingly present and engaged in international areas where information and ideas are traded and shared, where relationships and links are made.”
To understand his vision for a prosperous Iraq, he described the state of the Iraqi economy following the collapse of the Saddam regime and also the challenges facing the transitional government. The main features of the economy during Saddam’s era were militarization, centralized control, a backward public sector, and a stifled private sector, he explained.
“When Saddam took power, Iraq had something like $35 billion in foreign currency reserves. When he was removed, Iraq had debts of well over $100 billion.”
Before the Saddam era, Mahmood pointed out, Iraq was a promising country. Now the economy is in shatters and can be compared to the most miserable in the world. “Our currency has nose-dived from a free market value of about $1.20 per dinar in 1968 to 2,000 dinars per dollar in 2003. In other words, a total collapse,” he added.
Despite such results, he was optimistic. For one thing, a substantial proportion of Iraqis have moved forward because they are outside the control of the central government. Nearly four million Iraqis living abroad have also acquired the necessary knowledge, skills and, in some cases wealth, which will contribute to the economy.
“The economic policy that we want to adopt, in contrast to Saddam’s regime, is directed at raising the living standard of the Iraqi people through rebuilding the infrastructure, creating an environment friendly and supportive to the private sector and foreign investors, encouraging free trade and reducing taxes,” Mahmood said.
Session moderator Kamel Lazaar, president and managing director of Swicorp, Switzerland, told the gathering Iraq was “an El Dorado in the making in the next few years.”
In an interview with Arab News, Mahmood pointed out that despite the obstacles facing Iraq, “We no longer have a dictator blocking everything and making it impossible to move forward. We have different opinions with different agendas and ideas, but we are resolving our problems through dialogue and not violence.”
He also emphasized that American participation is important to Iraq, despite the skeptical view of the Arab media toward the United States.
From an agricultural perspective, Al-Abood said there were 35 new factories opening in Iraq and that foreign companies and individuals — including Saudis — can either lease, or invest in, them. These include cattle-raising, the use of arable land, rehabilitation of palm trees and crops, but most important is the availability of water — the Middle East’s most scarce resource but one which Iraq possesses in abundance.
