By John Lee. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Iraq has reportedly established a local arbitration committee, aimed at minimizing financial losses from external arbitration and attracting foreign investors. Mohsen Al-Humaidawi [Mohsin Al Hamed], Head of ICC Iraq, told the state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA) that the new committee, announced at the International Trade […]
By John Lee. Iraq's government has successfully attracted $100 billion in investments over the past two years, according to Mohammed Al-Najjar, advisor to the Prime Minister for Investment and head of the Iraq Development Fund. He told the state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA) that a $5 billion agreement was signed recently with Egypt's Elsewedy Electric […]
By John Lee. According to information from Rabee Securities, the approval of the Iraqi Securities Commission (ISC) will be required in every case where foreign ownership of a company exceeds 49 percent. The brokerage house says the ISC informed the Board of Governors of the Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX) of the change on Wednesday 6th […]
By Madeleine White, capacity building specialist and co-founder of Nina-Iraq Magazine, Director of Impact, Challenges. On International Women's Day last year I was in Kurdistan, addressing an audience of hundreds of men and women looking to celebrate the strides women had made in both Kurdistan and Iraq as a whole. This year I spent the day in the City […]
By John Lee. Standard Chartered has announced the appointment of Ahmed Muallah as Managing Director and Head of its Wholesale Banking business in Iraq. Commenting on the appointment, Gavin Wishart, Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered Iraq said: “This appointment comes as another testament to our long term commitment to Iraq. Standard Chartered is bringing its best international financial business […]
By John Lee. The French Ambassador in Baghdad Dennis Gauer (pictured) has accompanied a delegation from the French Foreign Ministry including Jean Francois Giraud, Head of the North Africa and Middle East Department at the ministry. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and his ministry's head of the Europe Department greeted the delegation, and issues such […]
So far the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster have had surprisingly little impact on emerging markets. While the Nikkei is down 13% since the quake (as of March 17), the MSCI emerging markets index has fallen only 3%. And in Iraq, Rabee Securities’ RSISX is actually up 0.4%. Emerging markets could continue to slide, […]
In my October 11 post, I argued that the ISX stands a reasonable chance of joining this year’s emerging markets rally. Today, I’d like to make an even more audacious claim: in 2011, inflows of foreign money could potentially make Iraq the world’s top performing market. You can get some idea of the upside potential […]
This hasn’t been a great year for Iraqi stocks by any stretch of the imagination. As measured by Rabee Securities’ dollar-based index, as of October 7 the market is down 10% year-to-date. And with index constituent stocks with a total weighting of something like 40% currently suspended from trading and Warka Bank (BWAI) no longer […]
