In Order to Support Private Investment in Iraq … and In Coordination with the Organization for Economic cooperation & Development OECD
NIC Adopts Investment Zones Concept

Within the framework of the efforts of encouraging and enabling private foreign investment in Iraq and aiming at overcoming some obstacles that had faced the implementation of some investment projects, NIC adopted the concept of establishing Investment Zones according to article (9) seven of the investment law No. 13 for the year 2006 in cooperation with the OECD. NIC prepared a strategy to establish these zones depending on similar patterns in Iraq like the free zones and the industrial zones but with different concept for the investment zones that differs in its economic and administrative role from that for the free and industrial ones.
An NIC in charge official said that the commission is currently preparing the final draft for the investment zones system in Iraq through a central committee headed by NIC with the membership of a number of Provincial Investment Commissions with implementing the first investment zone in Heteen Site in Babil province before the end of this year provided that other investment zones shall be implemented in other Iraqi provinces according to a central planned vision through the coordination between NIC, Ministry of Finance, ministry of Planning and Ministry of Industry & Minerals.
NIC previously prepared a general framework of the strategy of establishing investment zones in Iraq and discussed in the meetings held in Amman for the period 29-31/3/2011 the investment zones proposed all over Iraq which are to be six in (Babil, Baghdad, Basra, Nineveh, Anbar and the Furat Awsat zone between Najaf and Kerbala) the meetings also discussed a number of relating subjects like the current situation for the economic zones in the Middle East, North Africa and Iraq when evaluation of some experiences in the region was made and light was shed on the most known lessons in order to work on the economic zones strategy in Iraq.