The local administration in Basra decided to allocate the sum of 242.2 billion Iraqi dinars (ID) [$207m] to carry out service and urban projects in preparation for the hosting of the Khaleeji 21 soccer tournament [21st Gulf Cup of Nations], a spokesman said on Thursday.

“The higher committee for the rehabilitation of Basra, chaired by Governor Shaltagh Abboud al-Mayyah, earmarked ID242.2 billion for projects including the construction of three bridges in the city and two others in the province’s districts as well as the rejuvenation of five main intersections,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“The projects also include the rehabilitation of a road between the Khalid Bridge on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, the airport road and other roads leading to the Sports City,” he added.

The Arabian Gulf Cup of Nations, also known as Khaleeji, is a soccer tournament currently held every two years, rotating the host city each time.

While the competition is usually held on a biannual basis, the history of the competition has also seen it held every three, or even four years, due to political or organizational problems.

The Arabian Gulf Cup of Nations was founded at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico by Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The First Arabian Gulf Cup tournament took place in Bahrain in 1970, and was won by the Kuwaiti team.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

The Maysan [Missan] Provincial Council allocated more than $42 million [49 billion Iraqi dinars] for the development of the province’s marshlands for 2011, a local official said on Thursday.

“The ministry of state for the marshes’ affairs have allocated the sum of 49.900 billion dinars to set up service projects in the eastern and western marshlands in Missan,” Jasseb Kadhem Himdan, the chairman of the council’s marshes development committee, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“The projects focus on health, housing, education, electricity and communications ,” he added.

He pointed out that the ministry, during 2010, spent 70 billion dinars to refurbish the Missan wetlands, adding some 178 projects were carried out in the spheres of housing, agriculture, water resources, education, roads, electricity, water, sanitation, health, communications and social development.

The marshes in southern Iraq, the largest and oldest in the world, play a key environmental role in housing of indigenous and migrant birds. They cover an area of between 15,000 and 25,000 square kilometers.

With a population of about 500,000 people, the marshlands shrank by one-tenth during the former regime’s time after all river courses were altered and dams were built to cut them into parts, a matter that prompted most of their inhabitants to emigrate.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

Officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government pressed the central government today to recognise oil contracts that they have inked with transnational corporations, warning that they will not resume exports until it does, according to Morning Star.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which can reportedly export 150,000 barrels a day, has signed 37 contracts for oil exploration and production with 40 transnational firms since the US-led invasion toppled the Ba’athist regime in 2003.

Those production sharing agreements, which entitle the companies to a share in the oil extracted, are deemed illegal by Baghdad.

Article 11 of the Iraqi Constitution states that the country’s oil and gas belongs collectively to all Iraqi citizens, regardless of their religious background or in which region they live.

Iraq’s newly appointed Oil Minister, Abdul-Karim Luaibi [Elaibi], has declared that the KRG can sell oil to the outside world – but only through the national export network, with revenues going to the government budget.

Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources adviser Ali Hussein Balo said that was not possible because “We are committed to the companies we have signed contracts with to have a share in the produced oil.

“Baghdad wants everything free of charge,” Mr Balo complained.

He said that the KRG will only start exporting if all “our deals are recognised officially in a signed paper by Baghdad.”

Iraq’s new oil minister last week declared the dispute over how private companies accounted for equipment costs and other expenses for reimbursement has been settled, clearing the way for the exports to resume.

He said Baghdad would receive all the oil produced for export and would pay only the costs incurred by the developers.

The KRG started exporting oil for the first time on June 1 2009, despite protests from Baghdad. The exports were suspended in October of the same year in a dispute over payments.

Oil revenues account for nearly 95 per cent of Iraq’s budget.

(Source: Morning Star, Associated Press)

Iraq needs foreign investors in the oil sector to help break a bottleneck at its southern ports, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

“We have no restrictions on their [foreign investors] entry. We want them,” Maliki told The Wall Street Journal. “We need speed. We need money.”

Maliki last year gave the nod to a series of oil deals aimed at boosting the country’s oil production to more than 12 million barrels of crude oil per day in less than a decade. Exports and production, however, are limited in part by a lack of infrastructure at southern ports and a slow-moving political system.

Oil production has lingered at around 2.5 million barrels per day from Iraqi fields for years. Maliki said four new oil-exporting terminals off the coast of Basra, however, could push Iraq’s export capacity past the 3 million barrel mark by September, a first since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Maliki’s one-time rival, Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, recently issued a religious edict prohibiting work with foreign companies doing business in Iraq. The prime minister brushed the ruling off as “mere opinion.”

(Sources: Wall Street Journal, UPI)

Iraq’s Ministry for Electricity has confirmed the extension of bidding by international companies to invest in four electricity stations for an additional 40 days.

The Ministry’s press officer, Musaab al-Mudarris, said that the ministry will study offers in order to choose the best of them to install stations in four areas: “Basra, Amara, Simawa, and Diwania”.

He added that ministry invited companies to install three more stations in different provinces.

(Source: National Media Centre)

An adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said on Thursday that in the coming Arab League Summit in Baghdad, Iraq will push for the creation of an “exclusive” Arab trade organization, similar to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The organization is to boost trade and economic cooperation among the oil producing, industrial and commercial Arab countries, Salam Qurayshi told AKnews.

The Arab states are expected to convene in Baghdad on March 23 to take part in the next Arab Summit; Iraq has not hosted the summit since May 1990 due to the economic and political sanctions.

The Arab press stress holding the assembly in Iraq is to bring the country back into the Arab fold and to distance it from Iran, according to AKnews.

(Source: AKnews)

The Chairman of Iraq’s National Investment Commission (NIC), Dr. Sami Al- Araji, confirmed during his meeting with the Netherlands Ambassador to Baghdad, the National Investment Commission’s willingness to create huge economic partnerships between Iraq and Netherlands in various sectors.

Dr. Al- Araji said during the meeting that the commission is ready to grant investors willing to invest in Iraq all facilities and incentives guaranteed by Iraqi investment law, adding that the Iraqi market is very promising.

He said Iraq has very fertile soil for planting great investments.

The Dutch Ambassador to Baghdad confirmed his country’s desire to reinforce economic relations and to utilize the available opportunities to enter the Iraqi market in a way that is beneficial to both countries.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry has announced a plan to equip three refineries with modern equipment that would help in producing oil derivatives.

The Undersecretary of the Oil Ministry, Ahmed Shaiyaa, told AKnews that the ministry plans to rehabilitate three refineries: Baiji [Bayji] (pictured), Kirkuk, and Doraa [Doura].

“The ministry will contract with a number of global companies to purchase equipment and modern devices able to provide derivatives in a short time”.

“Iraqi oil ministry will call British, Korean, Turkish companies and several other concerned companies to equip the three refineries with new equipment. ”

The Oil Ministry said in September that crude oil inventories in the country has reached 505 billion barrels from the total of the discovered fields that are 66 oil fields, with total recoverable reserves of 143 billion barrels.

(Source: AKnews)