Iraq Seeks to Become Regional Trade Hub

“We expect that Iraq will soon turn into one of the major trade-exchange areas across the region and the world, as this law will give shippers the freedom to choose between multimodal transport services and partial transport services, now that the customs procedures have been facilitated and the necessary attention has been given to the problems facing transit countries,” he added.

For his part, member of the parliamentary Committee on Economy and Investment Mahma Khalil told Al-Monitor, “What Iraq needs in order to become one of the Arab and international trade areas is to implement the agreement. It has become imperative to deal with the inconsistency in the customs legislation in Iraq and with the Arab states, which limits the flow of goods across the border and even inside Iraq. This is especially true with the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and the central, southern and western areas of Iraq.”

Khalil also said that it is necessary to set forth rules in line with international standards, such as the Convention on the Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic and the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations, among other agreements, to ensure operation requirements. Iraq also needs to turn to logistic thinking, setting forth model rules for the disposal of shipping containers and atypical documents for multimodal transportation.