Iraq’s investment sector had been exposed to obstacles and problems which caused high rate of unemployment in Iraq but now government’s current moves of granting facilities to investors including regulations in completing transactions and eliminating corruption, also providing a safe environment which aims to provide large projects to create job opportunities and services, are renewing hope for the growth of investment sectors in the country.
According to specialists, a number of measures must be taken as investment in Iraq does not meet the required level.
Measures to support investment in Iraq
“The commission has been continuing for a year of ongoing work with successes despite the challenges it faces,” said the Head of Investment Commission, Suha Al-Najjar, said to the news agency.
She stressed “the most prominent thing that the commission has done in the field of investment in the service of citizens is the Rafeel city project, which is considered a supportive administrative capital for Baghdad,”
“This comes with an accompanying tangible economic and social reflection on the Iraqi economy for its active and expected participation in solving part of the problem of increasing population expansion and the accompanying urgent need for housing with its contribution to absorb a percentage of unemployment by providing large job opportunities up to 100 thousand opportunities,” she has added.
Al-Najjar highlighted that, “under the guidance of Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, the first down payment from Bismayah City project was reduced from 25% to 10% of the value of the housing unit in a supportive step for this housing project and a 50% reduction of the interest rate to be 2% instead of 4% and in proportion to the standard of living of a large segment of citizens, in direct coordination with Iraqi government banks.”
Al-Najjar has also confirmed about the control of corruption in the investment file, “The doors of corruption have been controlled in tax exemptions by which building and other materials are entered into the country without paying customs duties, as it is exempt from that.”
“This represents a blow to the Iraqi economy and a boost to unemployment, by the formation of a department in the Commission that employs the best talents and specialists to monitor those exemptions and imported materials,” she said while wondering that, “How can local products compete with foreign products that entered while they are exempt from customs?”
She continued that, “The doors of corruption have also been controlled in granting entry visas that are granted to investors to bring in foreign workers and enter company staff and the corruption that occurs in it, as some non-serious investors work to bring in hundreds of foreign workers and the visas are sold to them or they receive fees from the coming people to work in Iraq. The commission has checked all the features included and excluded any suspicious features,”
Al-Najjar has also explained that, “The investment licenses that recorded a completion rate ranging between zero – 35% have been withdrawn and canceled. The time period available for project implementation has expired,” underlining that “the authority continues its procedures related to withdrawing investment licenses for lagging projects after studying them by specialized committees to determine the circumstances of each project and the reasons for the delay in coordination between the National Investment Commission and the investment authorities in the governorates,”
She stated in her conclusion that “There is great cooperation to identify those uncompleted and lagging projects to support the reality of investment in the governorates.”
Direction to widen investment area on both regional and global level
Hanan Jassim, the director of the Commission’s media, told the news agency, that “the current year 2022 will witness qualitative and real leaps in the investment file,”
“The Commission is interested in developing and expanding investment in a number of files, most notably the alternative solar energy for electric energy due to the increasing need. Iraq has this energy, as well as in the field of housing complexes, and other areas,” She has explained.
Jassim wen on saying that, “Our next plan includes directing Arab and local investment, as well as foreign investment,”
Large areas for investment in Iraq
Ministry of Agriculture’s spokesperson, Hamid Al-Nayef, told the news agency, that “with regard to investment in Iraq, especially in the field of cultivated areas, especially in Muthanna Governorate, is estimated at up to one million acres, as it was also offered for investment and placed under the supervision of The National Investment Commission, which is responsible for contracting and working,”
“Local investors do not invest in Iraq because of the laws,” he underlined.
Al-Nayef stated that, “the need for a special agricultural law for investment, with the provision of facilities,”