By Ahmad Saleh, IraqiXchange.

Kindi Veterinary Vaccines (ISX: IKLV) surprises investors and announces after tax net profit of 378 mil IQD for 2009, up tenfold from the previous year. On August 18th it published its annual results and returned to trading after being suspended from the Iraq Stock Exchange earlier this month for not disclosing last year’s results to shareholders by the July 31st deadline.

Formerly known as Veterinary Vaccine Institute, a government institution which has been semiprivatized since the start of the decade and is currently a mixed sector company whose state ownership has been reduced to 25% since. Al Kindi’s laboratories produce and market both viral and bacterial veterinary vaccines in an effort to combat enzootic diseases and increase the productivity of the country’s native animals. It is the only laboratory of its kind in the animal immunization business in Iraq but now faces competition from foreign imports due to its insufficient production which is far from enough to cover demand at this moment. The company complains from the lack of security but mostly from power shortages disrupting production.

In spite of the challenging environment, the company invested 200 mil IQD to upgrade its facilities and expand its production capacity in 2009 resulting in a 62% hike in sales. Kindi announced its best year yet with record sales of 1.12 bil IQD mainly deriving from the increase in production of Sheeppox and Newcastle vaccines, up 102% and 14% respectively. Economies of scale have also improved profit margins dramatically leading to net profits after tax of 378 mil IQD or earnings per share of 0.158 dinars.

In 2009, Al Kindi also raised its capital from 1,000 to 2,400 mil IQD through a 20% bonus issue and 120% rights issue. The first 200 mil IQD of capital was raised by utilizing 130 mil IQD from its retained earnings and 70 mil IQD from reserves to issue free shares while the balance of 1,400 mil IQD being raised from existing shareholders at a price of 1 dinar per share. The company will be on General Assembly on August 31st and its shares will stop trading as of Monday August 23rd for the duration of the annual assembly while the Board of Directors discuss the 2009 results and decide on the allocation of last year’s surplus.

We launch our new Jobs in Iraq page today on the IBN web site in response to reader demand. This is a free reciprocal service for Recruitment Agencies and Employers with jobs on offer in Iraq. For readers it provides a welcome source of employment options in a country crying out for skilled labour and competent management.

Oil & Gas, Construction & Engineering, Public works, Agriculture , Education, Communications, and Transportation are all sectors where skilled people are needed.

If you have vacancies in Iraq contact Antony Wakeham on www.iraq-businessnews.com or email antony.wakeham@iraq-businessnews.com. The service is free on a reciprocal link basis.

The Russian drought and fires have caused the price of wheat to rocket, and this is expected to be reflected in the price of essentials such as bread and beer.

Shortages are to be expected in the coming months.

Iraq is one of the world’s biggest importers of rice and wheat, but its Trade Ministry has said that there is no cause for concern. According to Reuters, it has harvested just under 2 million tonnes of wheat and did not expect to be affected by the Russian drought.

Aswat al-Iraq quotes the Ministry as saying “Iraq has stored enough wheat to cover the ration card system until the end of this year, … [and] Dispatches of wheat are on the way to Iraq from Canada, the U.S., and Australia”.

This weekend the Kurdistan Regional Government has reported an excellent harvest.

(Sources: Aswat al-Iraq, Reuters, AKnews)

Related articles:

• $300m for Grain Silos in Kurdistan
• Iraq Issues Tender for 30,000 Tonnes of Rice
• Grain Production Exceptional This Season

A total of 25 billion Iraqi dinars [$21m] have been granted to farmers in Karbala in recent months to help them to increase their production, the director of the Karbala agriculture department said on Wednesday.

“The Karbala agriculture department has granted 2181 farmers agricultural loans worth more than 25.229 billion dinars,” Baher Ghali told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

The loans include 5.253 billion dinars to 573 small farmers, in addition to 7.240 billion dinars to 746 farmers from the livestock wealth projects.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

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An Iraqi economist blamed the high unemployment rate in the country on the government’s failure to develop the industries and reduce food imports, according to a report from AKnews.

“The Iraqi government has failed significantly to rescue Iraq from being the main country in the region in terms of consumption of imported foods. There is no plan that promotes industries in the country,” said Abdul Hadi Salman.

Estimates of the unemployment rate in Iraq vary — Iraqi government ministries  put the rate in the range from 30 to 48 percent.

Salman said a large portion of Iraq’s unemployment problem would be solved if industries were created.

“The next government has a mission to promote industrial development and help Iraq recover from the large imports which have damaged the country’s financial position over the past years.

According to the United Nations, food prices in Iraq have doubled between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the food import dependency ratio for Iraq was estimated to be at 76 percent, with the remainder covered by locally-produced foods.

(Source: AKnews)

Related articles:

• $300m for Grain Silos in Kurdistan
• Iraqi Government to Tackle Drought
• Grain Production Exceptional This Season

An additional 13 agricultural silos are to be build in the Kurdistan Region by the end of 2013, lifting the storage capacity up to one million tons, said an official source on Sunday, as reported by AKnews.

Before Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003, there were two silos in the region with a storage capacity of 32,000 tons. Later three new ones were constructed, increasing the capacity to 222,000 tons. Building new silos is expected to raise the production rate of grain in the region.

Aziz Ibrahim, the general director of Kurdistan’s Trade and Commerce Ministry, told AKnews that the KRG’s Agriculture and Water Resources ministry has funded a five-year project to build 16 silos from 2009 through to 2013.

In 2009 two silos were constructed in Erbil and Sulaimaniya, and one in Garmiyan area.

Ibrahim stated that the three structures, requiring an $88 million budget, can collectively store up to 100 thousand tons of grain.

Garmiyan area south of Sulaimaniya includes districts that were previously part of Kirkuk and Diyala provinces but were annexed to Sulaimaniya during the “Arabization” campaign under Saddam Hussein. The aim was to reduce the proportion of Kurds in Kirkuk and Diyala.

“In 2010, three silos are to be built, one in each of the three provinces in the Kurdistan Region. Over $88.8 million is allocated for their construction,” said Ibrahim.

“Construction of the remaining 10 silos should be completed by 2013. The cost of this is more than $214 million.”

Ibrahim said while the silos would have a storage capacity of around one million tons, currently only 450 thousand tons of grain is produced in the Region. He urged the government to support and persuade the farmers to raise their production rates.

For his part, Abdul-Hameed Abdullah, a director general in the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources told AKnews “when the additional 13 silos are constructed we can raise our production level by 50 thousand tons.”

The total cost of the silos is estimated to be around $300 million; the construction will take place in collaboration with Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, said Aziz Ibrahim, general director of KRG’s Trade and Commerce Ministry.

(Source: AKnews)

Related articles:

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Iraq issued a tender on Monday to buy 30,000 tonnes of rice from all origins with a closing date of Aug. 15, an Iraqi Grain Board source said.

The offer remains valid until Aug. 22, the source said, as quoted by Kippreport.

Iraq, which is trying to revive its agriculture sector after years of war, economic sanctions and drought, is one of the world’s leading importers of rice and wheat.

Its population of around 30 million consumes at least 1 million tonnes of rice annually.

The agriculture sector suffers from high soil salinity, poor irrigation practices, and a lack of proper seeds and fertilizer.

(Source: Kippreport)

Related articles:

• Iraqi Government to Tackle Drought
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• Ministry Minimizes Farming Shortfall

“The Iraqi government will take new procedures to combat drought in Iraq. It will launch a new initiative to control the drought and support the agricultural initiative that started last year”, a source in the Iraqi government said on Tuesday, as reported by AK News.

“There is a fear that the water levels in Tigris and Euphrates rivers may decrease by 2016 to about 23 percent, according to the latest governmental studies, because of the Turkish dams established on Tigris River… the initiative, which will be launched in the coming days, emphasises the need to find new alternatives to irrigate crops and use water properly. It also encourages the Iraqi exploitation of groundwater, especially in regions of Kurdistan”, the source explained.

The Planning Minister Ali Baban confirmed on Monday that “the agricultural and industrial sectors in Iraq are passing through a critical phase that includes a lot of problems”.

The Ministry of Water Resources had warned earlier about a Syrian project that plans to irrigate about 200 thousand hectares of its land from the Tigris River. [See our previous article about the 'Friendship Dam'.]

Iraq has witnessed recently a severe crisis in water supply: dozens of rivers and streams in Iraq are suffering from drought. The reduced levels of fresh water in the Shatt al-Arab have increased the amount of salt in the water in Basra, thus threatening agricultural land.

Iraq and Syria accused Turkey last September of reducing their share of water from 500 cubic meters per second agreed in 1987, to less than 120 cubic meters per second, according to experts, while the Turkish government attributed this to the lack of rain, high temperature, and low water levels in the Ataturk dam.

(Source: AK News)

The grain production in Iraq this season is exceptional, as a total of 1.6 million tons have been marketed, according to the general director of the state-owned seed company.

“The company continues to receive wheat and barley crops throughout the provinces, which reached 350,000 tons,” the trade ministry said in a statement received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“The company marketed 1.260 million tons of wheat and 347.6 thousands of barley in the past three months,” the statement added.

Meanwhile, the statement quoted the general director of the company’s branch in Wassit, Malek Khalaf Wadi, as saying that the Wassit still tops the Iraqi provinces in marketing wheat.

“Wassit has marketed 195,000 tons of wheat this season,” he noted.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

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A general of the former Iraqi army was wounded when he came under fire in western Mosul city.

“The incident occurred late yesterday night in the Tammuz-17 neighborhood in western Mosul,” a local police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency on Sunday.

The source explained that the officer’s house is in this area, and that he was outside when he was attacked.

“The general’s injuries are minor, and he has already been discharged from hospital,” the source noted.

( Aswat Al Iraq )

The Iraqi Agriculture Ministry has been able to minimize the farming shortfall, said a high ranking official from the ministry.

“This was achieved by prohibiting the import of some agricultural products,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency on Wednesday.

He noted that governmental financial support to farmers has boosted agricultural production in Iraq.

( Aswat Al Iraq )

The Agriculture Directorate in Dhi Qar said that it was surprised by the decision taken by the Common Agricultural Governmental Commission which banned rice agriculture in Dhi Qar province.

However, earlier the government had allowed planting 7500 dunom with rice during the current season. The directorate said that the commission also banned planting rice in Missan and Wasset and allowed Al Najaf province farmers to plant only 90000 dunomt.

The commission said that the cause of the decision is the shortage of water in the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

( Al SumariaTV )

Reuters‘ Serena Chaudhry reports lack of water is ruining crops and farmers’ livlihoods. She cites the case of

Abdullah Hasan a 50-year-old father of five from Falluja in western Anbar province who has been was forced to abandon his 50 acres of land and take a job in construction after years of drought killed off his wheat, barley, tomato, cucumber and watermelon harvests.

He has little hope of returning to farming — his primary source of income for 35 years — and plans to sell some of his land as water levels in rivers and reservoirs continue to drop, increasing the concentration of pollutants in the water.

A country dominated by arid desert landscapes, it has one of the most extensive irrigation systems in the world but years of war, underinvestment and sanctions have prevented it from properly harnessing what little water it has, she writes

The United Nations says around 83 percent of sewage is being discharged untreated into waterways, while the government estimates 24 percent of Iraqis do not have access to safe water.

Working with U.S. experts, the government is trying to build treatment plants and biological lagoons to clean polluted water.

In Anbar, a Provincial Reconstruction Team — a unit set up by the United States to help rebuild Iraq — has spent over $100 million to build and maintain treatment facilities and expects 97 percent of residents to have clean water by year’s end.

It could take months before a new government is formed and that means delays in new projects that need cabinet approval.