The leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council said they support Kuwait in its dispute with Baghdad over the construction of the Mubarak port.

The leaders declared at the conclusion of their regular summit in Riyadh that Mubarak port will ve established on Kuwaiti land and within its territorial waters as per the borders drawn by U.N. resolutions, the Kuwaiti News Agency reported.

Iraqi experts believe the port will reduce trade traffic through Iraqi ports and thus affect Iraqi commercial interest, but this was rejected by Kuwait.

Kuwait has already begun work on the Mubarak port on Bubiyan Island, in the far north-west of the Arabian Gulf.

Iraq threatened to take the issue to the U.N. if the port caused economic damage.

(Source: AKnews)

This article was written by Ahmad Wahid, and was originally published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, iwpr.net. It is reproduced by Iraq Business News with permission. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Thousands of Iraqis working across five ports in Basra fear they will lose their livelihoods if Kuwait presses ahead with plans to build one of the Gulf’s biggest harbours.

There are worries that once the 1.1 billion US dollar Mubarak port is completed, Iraq stands to lose up to 60 per cent of maritime traffic – mostly the larger cargo ships that already struggle to dock in Basra’s Umm Qasr, the country’s only deep-water port.

Work has started on a new port at Al-Faw close to Umm Qasr, but in May this year, the Kuwaitis began construction of the Mubarak port just over the border from the site.

The close proximity of the two developments has angered Iraqi politicians, workers and tribal leaders, who have pledged action against the Kuwaiti government.

Iraq’s transport ministry announced the 1.6 billion dollar port project for Al-Faw in 2005, with an Italian construction firm winning the contract to build the facility. Construction only got under way in 2010, with the first stage of the development planned to be complete by 2014.

The finished project, with total costs estimated to reach six billion dollars by the completion date of 2028, includes not only the port itself but infrastructure such as train lines linking Europe to the Gulf.

Iraqis say that once the new port opens, they will be as hard-hit economically as when the country was subject to sanctions in the 1990s because of the invasion of Kuwait.

Umm Qasr port administration has announced the seizure of materials contaminated with radioactive isotopes imported from Japan, according to Aswat al-Iraq.

A source told the news agency that an imported fork-lift, heading for the private sector, was discovered to have been contaminated by radiation.

No information was given on the volume of radiation in the equipment.

The minister of planning announced that Japanese materials will be embargoed for a period of two to three months due to radioactive contamination from the Fukushima Power plant (pictured).

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

Aswat al-Iraq reports that the Iraqi Ministry of Transport has decided to cancel land customs duties from sea ports of entry.

The ports media director told the agency that Minister Hadi al-Ameri decided to cancel these customs in order to encourage merchants to transport their goods through Iraqi ports.

Ports used to have land duty fees of about 30 dollars.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

Governments have many responsibilities, but one of the main requirements of government is not to get in the way.

If an economy is to grow, the administration must facilitate, or at the very least not hinder, people who are trying to create value, satisfy demand, and serve customers.

But the new inspection regime at Iraqi ports of entry is proving to be a major headache for many businesses trying to bring goods into the country.

Iraq’s Central Organization for Standardization and Quality Control (COSQC) has started implementing the Pre-Importation Inspection, Testing, and certification of Goods into Iraq (ICIGI); in many cases, we are told, even ignoring the two months grace period.

Confusion over the requirements for Certificates of Conformity, and long delays in issuing them, have resulted in a huge backlog of freight at Iraq’s borders, racking up charges and leaving orders unfulfilled.

According to Frankie France, director of Redcliffe International, the new regulations have not been thought through:

“I’ve been shipping to Iraq for 21 years, and despite the wars there was some structure … shipments were cleared and delivered … Now it seems that someone has come up with this new idea, forgetting how many hundreds of containers would be stuck at the quay at Umm Qasr for more than two months.”

These problems must be resolved with top priority.

[Please click here to see information provided by SGS, the company responsible for ICIGI, received following publication.]

High-ranking officials from Iraq and the Netherlands have met to discuss Dutch participation in developing Iraq’s sea-ports, according to a report from Contstruction Weekly.

Omran Radi, the director of the State Company of Iraq Ports and Yaron Rodenberg, the Dutch ambassador to Iraq, met this month to explore potential cooperation and work together to develop and modernise the sea-ports of Iraq.

“Omran Radi discussed during his meeting with the Dutch Ambassador joint ventures to develop sea-ports of Iraq and the contribution of Dutch companies in the process of construction and reconstruction,” said the Ministry of Transport.

Since the conclusion of the conflict in Iraq, Dutch companies have built a number of rigs for oil work, and operate in a variety of Iraqi ports.

In recent weeks, the Basra Investment Commission and the Dutch Economy Council held an conference in the ‘Sheraton’ Hotel in Basra, which was attended by seven Dutch companies, with a view to increasing cooperation.

(Sources: Construction Weekly, BIC)

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari denied allegations that he or his ministry had been bribed by Kuwait in order to settle the dispute over Kuwait’s new Mubarak Port, according to a report from AKnews.

Although Zebari stated that these allegations would not deserve a response, he labeled the allegations as “fabricated” and “defamatory”.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not engaged in bribery,” he said. “And we began proceedings today to prosecute every person who says that.”

Zebari added that the Mubarak Port was not discussed when an Iraqi delegation recently visited Kuwait. Allegedly, the talks had just been over “other outstanding issues with Kuwait,” said Zebari.

The parliamentary Integrity Committee had revealed on Sunday that it had information that the technical delegation from the Ministries of Transport and Foreign Affairs that visited Kuwait to examine the construction of Mubarak Port received gifts from Kuwait.

In early September, the Minister was quoted as saying that the dispute with Kuwait was resolved.

(Sources: AKnews, Al Sumaria News)

Minister Ali al-Dabbagh, Iraqi Government Spokesman, was interviewed by Padraig O’Hannelly for Iraq Business News at last week’s Iraq Mining 2011 conference in London. In this first part of the interview, Dr al-Dabbagh discusses the controversial Mubarak port:

Iraq Business News: Firstly, Dr Ali al-Dabbagh, thank you for agreeing to speak to us. I’d like to start with a question regarding the Mubarak al-Kabir [Kabeer] port project in Kuwait: There have been some reports in recent days that that whole issue has been resolved, that it’s not going to affect shipping into Iraq and so on. Can you confirm Iraq’s position on the project?

Dr Ali al-Dabbagh: The Government of Iraq has not yet given its final opinion about the Mubarak port. We do feel that there is a negative affect on our navigation lines, and the issue briefly is that the strait, which is 8km wide, is split in half – half to Kuwait and half to Iraq – as per Resolution 833 of the United Nations. The Iraqi side is very shallow, and not suitable for shipping; the Kuwaiti side has a [section] which is suitable for navigation, and it is only used by Iraqi vessels crossing to Umm Qasr. Kuwaitis never use this side.

The [UN] resolution gives the right to Iraq to navigate through the Kuwaiti water without paying any fees and without raising any Kuwait flags, so we have the right to use that passage, and any construction in that part we feel is going to obstruct our navigation. And because Iraq has very limited access to the Gulf we feel that is going to create a very high negative affect on our future lines for navigation, so we have asked the Kuwaitis to wait until we get the full information that this is not going to affect us.

Kuwait say they are making the construction on ‘zero low tide’, which means there is no projection of the construction in the water. We want to be sure that there is no … negative influence, neither environmentally, commercially, nor on navigation or trading. This port is being built to serve Iraq, because the other side of Boubiyan Island is not facing to Kuwait, it is facing to the Faw Peninsula, and in order for this port to work you need to maintain a good relation with the people who benefit out of this, which means Iraqis in this case. Without having a proper arrangement with Iraq I think we can’t accept this construction unless we are sure that this is not going to harm us. We have the full right to be worried about this issue, and we don’t want to create any problems to Kuwait, but we maintain the full right to protect our interests, and the interests of the Iraqi people.