BASRA, 14 November 2003 — Iraq’s southern port city of Basra has embarked on an ambitious drive to lure foreign investments in a bid to revitalize a devastated economy and create jobs for tens of thousands of Iraqis, a local government spokesman said yesterday.
The push, spearheaded by Basra Governor Wael Abdullatif, is targeting potential investors in neighboring Gulf Arab states and Iran, in addition to foreign-based Iraqi businessmen, Majed Al-Tamimi, a member of Basra’s Governing Council, said.
Abdullatif has already paid visits to neighboring Kuwait and the Iranian province of Khuzestan bordering Basra, leading large business and security delegations from the city.
Last month, he went to Kuwait for several days and held talks with wealthy businessmen and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, offering several projects for Kuwaitis. Companies from the emirate are already engaged in a number of short-term contracts in Basra and southern Iraq worth tens of millions of dollars, mostly in the oil and services sector.
Kuwait’s leading mobile telephone provider MTC has been awarded a contract to supply south Iraq with mobile phone services. MTC expects to pump in some $120 million over the next two years.
Earlier this week, a Basra delegation signed a number of agreements with Khuzestan province, one of them to establish a rail link between the two provinces, which will eventually be linked to Baghdad and later on to Europe, Al-Tamimi said.
Khuzestan also agreed to supply Basra with 100 megawatts of electricity, and the two sides agreed to open a free trade zone on the joint borders.
A Basra council delegation is planning to visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) shortly on a similar mission in response to UAE investor interest.
A special “operation room” for Basra reconstruction has so far prepared more than 120 non-oil projects requiring investments of $2 billion, Al-Tamimi said.
The team has already received bids from 30 potential investors from Kuwait, the UAE and Iraqis abroad. Memoranda of understanding have already been signed for a number of projects, he said.
A Kuwaiti company has bid to construct a huge industrial and storage facility area on the Shatt Al-Arab waterway on an area of eight square kilometers (three square miles) which can be doubled in the future.
A second Kuwaiti firm signed a memorandum of understanding to build a multi-million-dollar Disney-like amusement town in Basra.
A foreign-based Iraqi businessman has offered to construct a major tourist resort on an island in the Shatt Al-Arab, while a local businessman has submitted plans to build a huge hotel in alliance with an Emirati tycoon.
Among projects that have been approved by the local government is construction of a 2.5-km (1.5-mile) causeway between the western and eastern banks of Shatt Al-Arab in a bid to bring life to the eastern part of the waterway.
A multi-million dollar project has also been approved for the development of a Shatt Al-Arab corniche and to construct a number of fashionable shopping malls.
A major housing project to build 1,000 units for citizens who were forced out of their homes under ex-President Saddam Hussein’s rule will be completed within six months, Tamimi said.
Basra, a city of two million people, has seen three devastating wars in the past two decades; the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war, the 1990-91 Gulf War to liberate Kuwait, and the US-British invasion in March.
Most of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed or has badly deteriorated. There is no sewage network, roads are pot-holed and power and drinking water are scarce.
