By John Lee.
A Spanish-Iraqi business forum has taken place in Madrid, bringing together companies from both countries to explore investment and cooperation opportunities in Iraq. The event was hosted by the Chamber of Commerce of Spain and organised in coordination with the Spanish Embassy in Baghdad and the Iraqi Embassy in Madrid.
Sectors highlighted as open to investment included oil, gas and petrochemicals; energy and renewables; housing and new cities; transport and logistics; agriculture and food; industry and mining; tourism; health; education; and the digital economy.
Among the featured projects was the Development Road project, a 1,190-kilometre transport corridor designed to connect the Gulf with Turkey and Europe via road and rail infrastructure. The project includes Al Faw Grand Port, an electrified railway, industrial cities, free zones, logistics centres, and energy and fibre-optic infrastructure, with an estimated cost of around $17 billion.
Urban development was identified as a further area of opportunity, with Iraq planning 19 new cities across 13 provinces, including a development of 120,000 housing units. Digital transformation projects were also presented, including new submarine and overland fibre-optic routes linking Iraq with Turkey and Europe, and five planned data centres, three of them in Baghdad.
The session included presentations by Mustafa Allawi, president of Enki Holding Group, on multisectoral investment opportunities; Zaid Al-Jaddah, director general of Alhayat Scientific Office, on the Iraqi healthcare sector; and Ahmed Al-Hankawi of Etihad Law on the legal framework for doing business in Iraq.
The forum concluded with the signing of three memoranda of understanding between companies from both countries.
Speaking at the event, Riyadh Fakher Al-Hashimi, director general of foreign economic relations at Iraq's Ministry of Trade, said Iraq was "going through a period of great investment opportunities and needs the expertise and knowledge of Spanish companies." Juan Luis Gimeno, director general for economic and commercial intelligence at Spain's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise, described Iraq as a country of "great strategic importance" with "solid economic fundamentals."
(Source: Chamber of Commerce of Spain)
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