World Bank’s IFC urges investment in Iraq reconstruction

KUWAIT: The World Bank’s private sector arm urged international companies yesterday to overcome concerns about funding reconstruction projects in Iraq and seize high-yield investment opportunities in the country.

The International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) country manager for Iraq, Ziad Badr, was speaking in Kuwait ahead of an international conference this week for donors and investors to rebuild and revive Iraq’s economy as the country emerges from a devastating three-war against Islamic State.

“I don’t think that in any other part of the world there are such investment opportunities,” Badr said in a speech at the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry, giving as an example a Lebanese firm making a 24 percent return on its stake in a luxury hotel in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The IFC has about $1.2 billion in investments in different Iraqi ventures including banks, cement plants and telecommunications, and is preparing to announce a $250 million investment in a telecommunication venture, he said.

The Iraqi National Investment Commission (NIC) last week published a list of 157 projects it will seek investment for at the Feb. 1214 International Conference for Reconstruction of Iraq, estimated to cost about $100 billion in total. The projects include rebuilding destroyed facilities like Mosul’s airport and new investments to strengthen and diversify the economy away from oil sales, by developing transport, agriculture and industries based on the nation’s energy wealth, including petrochemicals and oil refining.

Rebuilding homes, hospitals, schools, roads, businesses and telecommunications is key to providing jobs for the young, ending the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people and putting an end to several decades of political and sectarian violence.

About 1,900 delegates have registered to attend the conference, representing foreign governments, private sector companies and international organizations, NIC head Sami Al-Araji told the gathering at the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce. “We are at the crossroads, the world now is supporting us, we have to seize the opportunity,” he said.