Iraq woos Indonesian businesses
JAKARTA (JP): A delegation of Iraqi officials yesterday met with Indonesian businesspeople to discuss possibilities of increasing trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.
During yesterday's meeting, sponsored by the Middle East Committee of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the businesspeople expressed their interest in the new opportunities provided by the recent partial lifting of the United Nations embargo on Iraq.
Iraq agreed earlier this month to sign an oil-for-food deal with the United Nations, which will permit Baghdad to sell US$2 billion worth of oil over six months to buy food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies to alleviate the effects of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.
The agreement will allow Iraq to begin selling oil on the world market for the first time since it became the target of stringent UN sanctions, including a ban on oil exports, after its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The deal will permit the sale of about 700,000 barrels of Iraqi oil a day, well below the country's prewar production level of some three million barrels a day.
The head of the Iraqi delegation, Senior Deputy Minister of Industry and Minerals Qahtan H. Al-Anbaki, said yesterday Iraq was presently opening its doors to investments in a wide range of fields, including agriculture, transport, telecommunications, food and humanitarian sectors.
He said that economic relations between Iraq and Indonesia had long been established, thus the partial lifting of the economic sanctions posed upon Iraq was merely a step to further encourage the relations between the two.
Iraqi Ambassador to Indonesia Sa'doon J. Al-Zubaydi said the visit of the Iraqi delegation is also meant to follow up a joint agreement signed last year allowing cooperation and an exchange of technical, trade and scientific ventures between the two countries.
Iraq and Indonesia, he added, are currently preparing a joint commission for trade that will incorporate officials at ministerial level.
Indonesia's exports to Iraq last year reached $1.06 million, up by more than threefold from the corresponding period in 1994.
Meanwhile, imports from Iraq reached $3.6 million, up 92.6 percent from 1994 figures.
Other members of the delegation include Iraq's Ministry of Trade's Director General of Foodstuffs Yousof Abdulrahman; Iraqi Central Bank's Director General Hasib K. Jwayid; head of the Chamber of Commerce in Baghdad, Zuhaur Abdulgafour Alyounis; Director for the Import of Medicines and Medical Supplies Tariq A. Bilal; and Director of South-South Trade of the Ministry of Trade Fawzi H. Aldhahir.
The delegation, which arrived here on Monday, is scheduled to meet Minister of Industry and Trade Tunky Ariwibowo and Chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Aburizal Bakrie, before returning to Iraq on Friday. (pwn)