Iraqi minister for reconstruction and housing said throughout 2011 some seven housing projects will be constructed in seven Iraqi provinces. AKnews reports that the flats will be allocated to 12,600 families in installments.

Mohammed Daraji told AKnews on Thursday that the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered the creation of the units in Kirkuk, Diyala, Basra, Nineveh, Karbala, Salahaddin and Baghdad to ease the housing crisis.

Each unit will comprise 600 three-floored flats, each constructed on 128 square meters area. There will be three rooms in each floor. All the basic services as school, hospital, electricity, mosque, etc will be provided for the units.

The project, designed by the ministry, is expected to be completed by September, Daraji added.

The flats will be issued to employees, the families of martyrs, and to a number of people whose daily income is less than 20 US Dollar. The customers are offered to pay in long-term installments while they may also benefit from governmental housing loan.

Those who have benefited form the government housing projects will be excluded if they apply to buy the flats.

(Source: AKnews)

Thirty-seven percent of the investment plan projects for the year 2011 in the province of al-Muthanna were approved in a “record” time, according to the province’s governor, Ibrahim Salman al-Mayyali, on Thursday.

“Muthanna finalized referral of 73% of the projects in the 2011 investment plan, worth 66.680 billion Iraqi dinars [$55.6m], thus outstripping all other provinces in the implementation of the plan,” he told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Hayder Abad Jabir, the director of Muthanna’s government contract department, expected all projects in the plan to be referred to investors within the first half of this year.

“Muthanna achieved the announcement of 95% of the plan’s projects, referral of 73% of them to investors and signing contracts of 45% of the total number of projects, 167,” Jabir added.

“Until this day, 122 projects were referred for implementation at a value of 56.611 billion Iraqi dinars while contracts were signed to implement 76 others at a value of 32 billion dinars,” he noted.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

The legal department of the Basra Investment Commission (BIC) is carrying out the final study of the bottled water project.

The head of the department, Mohammed Rhyad Hilal (pictured), said that the project submitted by the international company Everest Seven, includes the construction of a plant producing bottled water sterilized by ozone.

The production capacity of the plant is 1,040,000 bottles per month and the cost is $1 million [1.2 billion Iraqi dinars].

(Source: Basra Investment Commission)

The province of Wassit [Wasit] has blacklisted 19 general contracting companies for their slackness in implementign project, the province’s governor announced on Thursday.

“Nineteen were blacklisted and five of them had their licenses withdrawn for their delay in carrying out service projects,” Mahdi al-Zubaydi told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

He noted that the local administration in the province has decided not to allow those companies to enter into tenders under their names or any other names and to notify the planning ministry and the trade ministry’s companies registering department on the names of those firms.

“The province will take whatever legal action available against those prohibited companies if they ever entered under other names or do work on a subcontracting basis,” Zubaydi added.

AKnews reports that over 600 companies work in the construction sector in Wassit province.

(Sources: Aswat al-Iraq, AKnews)

Asiacell has stated that its revenues increased 17% year-on-year to US$377.29 million in Q1, according to a report from Wireless Federation.

EBITDA rose 14% to US$213.63 million, with EBITDA margin falling 1% to 57%. Revenue and EBITDA growth was driven by increased customer base and increased usage.

At the end of Q1, Asiacell had 8.306 million customers compared to 7.741 million in the year-earlier quarter. By the number of customers, its market share fell 4 percent year-on-year to 35 percent.

Blended ARPU (average revenue per customer) fell to US$15.13 from US$15.37 in the previous quarter and rose compared to US$14.03 a year-ago. The operator continues its network expansion driven by market growth.

(Source: Wireless Federation)

The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), which settles the damage claims of those who suffered losses due to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, made $880 million available to nine successful claimants on Thursday.

The latest round of payments brings the total amount of compensation disbursed by the Commission to $32.2 billion for more than 1.5 million successful claims of individuals, corporations, Governments and international organizations, states a news release.

Successful claims are paid with funds drawn from the UN Compensation Fund, which is funded by a percentage of the proceeds generated by the export sales of Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products.

The Geneva-based UNCC’s Governing Council has identified six categories of claims: four are for individuals’ claims, one for corporations and one for governments and international organizations, which also includes claims for environmental damage.

The Commission was established in 1991 as a subsidiary organ of the UN Security Council. It has received nearly 3 million claims, including from close to 100 governments for themselves, their nationals or their corporations.

(Source: United Nations)

AKnews reports that the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture has announced the allocation of $285 million [350 billion Iraqi dinars] for the rehabilitation of the country’s palm groves.

Ministry spokesman Karim al-Tamimi told the agency that $177.3m of the allocation will fund an investment plan put together by the General Authority of Palms, $76.3m will be used for private investment plans through the ministry and the remaining $31.4m will fund loans to palm grove owners.

The Iraqi government launched a comprehensive initiative to improve the agricultural situation in the country in July 2007, setting a ten year deadline for Iraq to reach the stage of self-sufficiency in strategic crops.

The initiative includes, among other things, supporting farmers with seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, land reclamation, and ensuring the purchase of strategic crops at market prices.

Iraq today has 11 million date palms and the Ministry aims to raise that to 30 million over the next ten years.

The renewal of date exportation from Iraq is part of the government’s plan to develop alternative sources of revenue in an economy that has an almost 95% dependency on oil revenues.

In the 1970s, Iraq’s 34 million date palms accounted for 30% of the world total. Official figures indicate that annual exports from the Basra province alone reached more than 130,000 tons.

Iraq now ranks only 7th among world date producers, according to Kamil Mikhlif al-Dulaimi, head of the Agriculture Ministry’s date palm board.

The region, once home to almost 13 million palm trees, acclaimed to be among the finest in the world, suffered greatly during the Iraqi-Iranian war which began in 1980 when the Saddam regime ordered the ‘beheading’ or bulldozing of many of the palms as part of a campaign to enhance security in the region.

In more recent years, the outbreak of the 2003 war to bring down the Saddam regime, heralded further devastation to the agricultural areas of Faw and Abu Khusaib and Shatt al-Arab in the Basrah province.

Many orchards were seriously damaged as hundreds of families were displaced from the Ahwar marshes to the palm groves. At the same time, benefiting from the chaos in the region, gangs were seizing farmland by force and reselling it to developers.

(Source: AKnews, Reuters)

• Three flights a week from Vienna to Baghdad
• Austrian Airlines now flies to two destinations in Iraq
• Serves a total of 12 destinations in Middle East

Austrian Airlines is to reincorporate the Vienna-Baghdad-Vienna route into its scheduled flight programme from 8 June 2011 onwards. The carrier will operate a total of three flights a week to the Iraqi capital. The service will be provided using an aircraft from the Airbus A320 fleet.

Austrian Airlines is returning to the Iraqi capital after 21 years. This will be Austrian’s second destination in Iraq, together with the city of Erbil. Austrian Airlines originally included the Vienna-Baghdad route in its flight schedule in 1982, but was forced to discontinue its service due to the Kuwait crisis in 1990.

Austrian Airlines is a pioneer in the Middle East: In December 2006, it has been the first Western European airline to operate a service to northern Iraq, and has continually expanded its presence in the region. In summer 2011, Austrian Airlines will operate six flights a week to Erbil. In spring 2004, Austria also became the first country in Western Europe to conclude a new, liberal and bilateral transport agreement with the Iraqi authorities after the Iraq war. This was done on the initiative of Austrian Airlines. With the additional connection to Baghdad, Austrian Airlines offers flights to 12 destinations in the Middle East.

The Austrian Airlines Vienna-Baghdad-Vienna route will operate as follows:

Vienna – Baghdad – Vienna schedule for summer 2011 (all times local):

Vienna – Baghdad                 Flight days              Departure              Arrival

OS 827                                    Wed, Fri, Sun            10.00 a.m.          3.00 p.m.

Baghdad – Vienna                Flight days              Departure              Arrival

OS 828                                   Wed, Fri, Sun               4.00 p.m.           7.30 p.m.