Announcement for investment opportunities

As Iraq Ministry of Communication ( Moc) believe in encourage investment , and in order to activate the role of private sector in the construction and development of telecommunications sector in Iraq, Moc is delighted to announce to private sector companies investment opportunities in optical fiber networks to be implemented as ppp’s (Public Private sector Partnership).

Below are the general descriptions of these investment opportunities, the specialists in , MoC will be ready to clarify the details and provide the investors with the required information assist them submitting their technical offers. The offers are to be submitted to the National Investment Commission or to the Ministry of Communication directly.

Idea of the projects:

The objectives of these projects are to be built optical fiber access network that provides all ICT services ( voice and data) for about two million subscribers using( FTTX )techniques . The network is to be utilized by several private sector operators ‘technically ’ acting as Virtual Service Providers (VSP ).

According to the national network core topology, the three projects are to be implemented by three investors separately (Network Providers) in three zones . Two to three (VSP’s)are to utilize one zone network by renting it from network provider investor.

General Descriptions

1. The investment contract will be a long term contract, about (15-20) years.
2. The revenue sharing will be so encouragable, as MoC aims to support such important projects.
3. The investors has the right to choose out resources to perform the project.
4. The investors has the right to adopt appropriate ( FTTX ) technique that may be suitable for a given area according to various criteria like feasibility study, demand forecast ,population density, informatics culture, standard of living ,…etc .
5. The ministry will support investors to make the right decision regarding the choice of FTTX technique to be adopted at a given area .as MoC has good experience due to implementation of several FTTX projects .
6. In order to prevent monopoly , the operators should not submit for these project .
7. The technical proposals that will be submitted by the investors are to be situated by specialists at MoC , extensive discussion is to be done with investors . some parts of the solution my need to be redesigned by the investor to accommodate the laws and applied rules especially regarding cyber security issues .
8. The three zones for project implementations are :
   1. The northern zone includes the provinces of musel , Kirkuk , Salah AL-Deen .
   2. The middle zone includes the provinces of Baghdad , Babylon , AL-Anbar and Diyala .
   3. The southern zone includes the provinces of Dhi Qar , Wasit , AL-Basrah , AL-Semawa , AL-Dewania , Karbala , AL-Nahjaf and Maysan .
9. The PPP contracts will include statements that enable Iraq CMC to perform its role regulator of the telecommunications sector in Iraq effectively .
10. Investor will be selected in accordance with principles of transparency and fair competition.