As of the end of 2008, the fund had received nearly $180 billion - and now the Iraqi Government has a “realistic” plan to take full ownership by the end of this year of the fund a top United Nations budget official told the Security Council today.
It said that the authorization will facilitate investments in Iraq from the UAE.
People in the southern Iraqi city of Basra are now able to listen to the province's first Christian radio station.
The UN on Tuesday expressed satisfaction that the Iraqi Government is willing to continue to pay five percent of its oil revenues into the Compensation Fund whether under the present mechanism or a successor mechanism to the Development for Iraq (DFI) whose mandate expires in December of this year.
Iraq has said it owes $25.5 billion in reparations, with $24 billion due to Kuwait alone. Iraq is seeking to reduce the amount of annual oil revenue it sets aside for war reparations, primarily to Kuwait, by 80 percent.
Basra’s Governor Shaltagh Abboud al-Mayyah said on Sunday that he discussed with the Dutch company IPS means of launching investment ventures in the southern Iraq city.
Iran's Parsian and Karafarin banks have been granted permits by the Iraqi government to open branches in Baghdad - Iran is the main trading partner of Iraq and has been one of the largest investors in Iraq since the fall of Saddam.
'I think signing this many contracts, in so short a time, at the end of the government's term, leaves any future government stuck with long-term contracts that last for 25 years,' a former Iraqi oil minister said. 'There is a need to review these contracts.'
In Iraq’s fevered political climate, no deal makes everyone happy, and the oil contracts could easily become a casualty as Iyad Allawi, the declared winner in last month’s election, begins the messy process of stitching together a governing coalition.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday said Iraq must continue to pay five percent of its oil proceeds into the Compensation Fund even if arrangements for the successor Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) are in place and Iraq stated its commitment to settle all debts inherited from the Saddam regime.
The Iraqi ports of Umm Qasr and Abu Falous continue to receive a steady flow of merchant ships carrying varied cargos. Ships from Panama, the United States, Liberia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates have recently arrived containing various cargoes including pipes, iron, fuel and cement. Mr. Iain Blake, Senior Broker at Anglo Arab Insurance […]
An Italian group will begin construction in a month's time on what will become Iraq's largest shipping port, the Iraqi transport minister announced Monday.
