H.E Mr. Nuri al- Maliki
Dear Ministers
Ladies and Gentlemen
On behalf of the National Investment Commission in Iraq, I would like to welcome you in Baghdad. Koreans are not strangers to this land; it is time to have you back. The first Korean workers arrived into Iraq in 1975 when Iraq was the most attracting among Arab countries to the Korean labor.
South Korea achieved a special record in development and access into the global economic system. Its economy is classified as one of the top 20 in the world. We congratulate you for this enormous achievement and look forward to cooperate with you in all fields.
As you know, Iraq is a rich county, but until this moment, did not utilize its potential resources. We have unlimited opportunities in all economic sectors. Investment law granted the foreign investor many chances and privileges and offered high level of independency to the provinces in granting investment licenses keeping the major strategic projects for the National Investment Commission.
Business and investment environment in Iraq is in continuous change. Many legislations were issued including new laws for companies, banks stock change, financial management, purchases and the central Bank of Iraq. Iraq developed many of its strategy to lessen the government control on prices and establish procedures to restructure state owned companies.
NIC and PICs are the executive parties to investment law number 13 for 2006 and its amendments. By following the OSS system, we work with the investor to finish all licenses and the required documents to gain the appropriate land for the project.
We do believe that the successful investment in various economic sectors in Iraq in addition to achieving the goal of the local and international investors in regaining their capital as early as possible with high rate of benefit, will directly affect the Iraqi citizen life style and the prosperity of the society in general.
You will find detailed information regarding more than 750 projects in the documents distributed to you which are the most important investment opportunities in Iraq with a value of more than 600 billion USD. For example:
Housing sector: Iraq is working on attracting investors to build 500 thousand units in all provinces under concessional terms. We have offers from international companies and investors to build more than one million units under legal and financial term that are being prepared now in addition to the required land in each province including Kurdistan region.
Electricity: international companies and investors submitted their offers to build energy production stations. They negotiated 24 thousands MW productivity. we are analyzing and negotiating the offers to choose the best terms for both parties.
We are committed to do everything we can to ensure the launch of your investment project with strong steps because you have all success factors.
I repeat welcoming you and thank you for participating in this first forum between our two countries. We thank H.E. Mr. Nuri Al Maliki for his great support and continues follow up to NIC work and goals in addition to his generous patronage to this forum.