Iraq woos Indonesian businesses
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)