DUBAI, 20 February 2004 — Dubai rolled out the red carpet yesterday for an Iraqi delegation as part of its campaign to win a piece of a multi-million dollar contract to develop and run the war-torn country’s once booming southern ports.

The meeting between the Iraqi delegation, led by the governor of the Iraq’s main southern city of Basra and interim Governing Council member Wael Abdul Latif, officials from the Gulf city state was held on top of the super-luxury Burj Al-Arab hotel.

“This meeting signifies a greater role for Dubai in the reconstruction of Basra ports after the work we did at Umm Qasr port,” said Colonel Saeed ibn Belailah, director of Dubai’s Naturalization and Residency Department, which regulates all entry through the emirate’s air and maritime ports. “The Iraqi officials have expressed a willingness to use the example of our own progress and infrastructure in Dubai,” he said.

Abdul Latif told reporters that Iraq wants to build a “strategic relation with the UAE, which has grown by leaps and bounds.”

Belailah sent a team of experts to Umm Qasr in June to develop and put in place systems to organize all entry and exit through Iraq’s only deep-water port, on the Shatt Al-Arab waterway near Kuwait.

Umm Qasr is already capable of handling 30,000-ton container vessels under a current management deal supported by a USAID program, due to expire in June 2004.

But Iraqis have greater ambitions and want to restore Iraq’s bygone maritime glory with a $750-million plan to develop Umm Qasr, as well as the smaller ports of Al-Maqal, Khor Zubair, Abu Fulus, and Khor Al-Amaya.

Foreign investors have until the end of March to tender bids for 10-year concessions to develop and manage these ports. Winners are expected to be announced at the end of April. The Dubai Ports Authority has already submitted a preliminary offer for the project and believes it has a leg over competitors being home to Jebel Ali, the largest duty free port in the Middle East, and by virtue of its traditional links with Iraq. Dubai, part of the seven-emirate federation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is strategically located at the Gulf’s entry and acts as a trans-shipment hub for many goods from Asia which are then loaded onto planes bound for other parts of the Middle East and Europe.

The UAE contributed $250 million to Iraq at a Madrid donors conference at the end of October and is hosting a follow-up gathering next week for the countries and institutions that had pledged $33 billion to Iraq’s reconstruction.