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The room is buzzing. Men lean on wooden shelves as they phone brokers sitting behind a glass barrier. Others focus on screens showing the latest trades on the Iraq Stock Exchange, while an AK-47-wielding guard keeps his distance behind.

The market has resumed trading after a five-day break because of Sunday’s general election and the mood among investors appears sanguine. The polls passed without the big attacks many feared and investors’ minds are back on their equity portfolios.

“I’m not buying or selling, but I’m expecting the market to go up,” says Naeem Abdullah, eyeing the banking sector. “We are expecting political and security stability and that will attract foreign investment.”

The market closed after its first session of the week on Tuesday up 1.2 per cent, with the value of trades around $6m (€4.4m, £4.01m) a cautious thumbs-up to the latest test of Iraq’s stability and nascent democracy, seven years after the US-led invasion. was set up in 2004 to replace a government-controlled bourse. It began with just 15 listings and an antiquated system needing share certificates to be physically exchanged. The market reflects how facets of normal life continued despite Iraq’s turmoil – with some even improving.

Today, however, it boasts 91 stocks, a market capitalization of around $2.5bn and, since last April, electronic trading based on Nasdaq OMX technology.

Its performance has mirrored the fortunes of the nation. During 2005 and 2006, as Iraq headed towards civil war, the market fell by about 40 per cent, says Taha Abdulsalam, ISE chief executive.

“I call them the black years,” he says. “People left Iraq – families, rich people, and businessmen – and they [went] to Jordan, Syria and Dubai, they invested there and we lost their money.”

As the violence fell, trading volumes picked up and the market’s performance improved, although it can be volatile. In 2009 the market was down 2.98 per cent in dinar terms, and in the year-to-date it has fallen by around 2.8 per cent.

Mr. Abdulsalam hopes to attract more listings, develop internet trading and lure foreign investment, which accounted for about 3 per cent of the value of trades last year.

Iraq desperately needs such investment, with development seen as critical to stability. Falling oil prices in 2009 revealed Iraq’s dependence on crude, which provides 98 per cent of government revenues.

Meanwhile, services and infrastructure are decaying after years of sanctions and war and unemployment runs at 15 per cent – or 57 per cent for males between 15 and 29. Iraq is a frontier destination that offers potential – notably the worlds third largest proved oil reserves – but also comes fraught with risk, from the threat of violence to corruption and the weakness of state institutions.

(Financial Times)

Arab finance and economy ministers opened a meeting in Kuwait on Thursday with calls for speeding up economic integration, and establishing a customs union by 2015, reports AFP.

The ultimate aim is to establish a full Arab common market by 2020.

"We must have a working program with a timetable to implement Arab joint ventures and other economic integration projects," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told the opening ceremony of the one-day meeting.

Moussa said that inter-Arab trade "represents the weakest field in Arab economic integration efforts," but added that there had been successes in the areas of investment and capital transfer.

Iraqi Trade Minister Safaa al-Deen al-Safi said "Arab economic integration has become an urgent necessity dictated by the fallout of the global economic crisis," and called for revision of the integration mechanisms.

Arab leaders held their first ever economic summit in Kuwait in January last year and adopted a number of resolutions calling for the speeding up of joint projects with the goal of forming a common market in 2020.

The Arab ministers meeting in Kuwait are to discuss ways to implement those resolutions ahead of a second economic summit in Egypt early next year, Moussa said.

The Arab leaders also launched a two-billion-dollar Arab economic development fund to provide assistance to small and medium-size projects in poor Arab countries.

Moussa said that pledges to the fund have exceeded the one-billion-dollar mark, which enables the fund to start operations, and urged Arab countries to make contributions.

Arab countries launched the Pan-Arab Free Trade Area about four years ago but it did little to boost commerce among member’s states, which remained at between 10 percent and 12 percent of total Arab trade.

The customs union is planned to be completed in 2015 and Moussa urged Arab countries to make a timetable for implementation.

The ministers will also study measures to implement Arab program for reducing unemployment and poverty, which runs as high as 40 percent in at least seven Arab nations. The National quotes Moussa as saying that one third of the Arab world, or 100 million people, suffer from illiteracy and one-third lives on less than $2 a day.

(Sources: AFP, The National)

Investment Authority in Diyala agreed with a local company to set up the biggest oil refinery in the province at a cost exceeding $ 100 million, and build more than 40 thousand residential units, with an investment of 200 thousand acres of farmland.

The official Investment Authority ,engineer Mjul Mahdi said in a statement for "Al Sabah": that the Authority held in cooperation with the local administration in Diyala, the first investment conference in Sulaimaniyah province for the period from 17 to 22 of December, adding that at the conference which was attended by Tenths of global ,Arabic and local investment firms, an agreement was done with one of them to set up a giant oil refinery in the province at a cost of $ 137 billion and a capacity of up to 30 thousand bpd, especially after the second round for licensing of oil released by the Ministry of Oil deter companies from investing in the province, although the security situation improves and there is a lot of oil wells and specifically within Khanaqin.

He said the project aims to sufficient the actual need of the product oil in all areas of the province, as well as absorption of unemployment after the agreement with the company executing the operation of the labor of the people of Diyala, as well as the selection of cadres advanced engineers and specialists according to standards and guidelines set by the executing company.

He noted that the conference also witnessed the agreement with a number of Italian companies on building the largest residential compound in Diyala province, an area of 1300 acres stretching from the jurf al mlah until the sada area on the eastern side of the city of Baquba.

He said the project includes construction of 40 thousand residential units distributed among the employees and citizens equally under the installment method, as well as an agreement to establish a residential complex in the Saad camp consists of 3000 units at a cost of $ 240 million with the creation of buildings, markets, multi-layered recruitment of a building near the old central Baquba, at a cost of six million dollars. He added that the agricultural sector projects included the investment of 187 thousand acres in an agricultural area near the camp of the great new Iraq (Ashraf earlier) to establish a coefficient of paste and olives.

Poverty and unemployment levels have fallen noticeably in Iraq during the recent few years, the Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT) said in a report on Sunday.

“Covering all Iraqi provinces, a 2008 survey that has been conducted in accordance with recommendations from the International Labor Organization (ILO) has shown that unemployment rates among Iraqis of no less than 15 years is 15 percent,” according to the statement, which was received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Unemployment was highest among those aged between 15 and 19 years and lowest among PhD holders, the statement noted.

The results have shown a 12 percent decrease in unemployment figures, compared to 2006.

Unemployment rates registered 18 percent in 2005, 26 percent in 2004 and 28 percent in 2003.

Another social and economic survey has revealed that seven million Iraqis- around 23 percent of the population are living below the poverty line.

Muthanna was ranked as the poorest Iraqi province with a poverty rate of 49 percent, followed by Babel with 41 percent and Salah al-Din, 40 percent.