Successful Story of BNCP

In March 2010, The National Housing Program was announced as a part of the Iraqi Economic Development plan. According to the National Housing Program, National Investment Commission (“NIC”) proposed the BNCP project (“BNCP”) as the first and model project in IRAQ.

BNCP is the first and the biggest city development project throughout the history of Iraq. Bismayah city is located 10km south east of Baghdad on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti Highway, spread on a total area of 1,830 Hectare area and is planned to accommodate around 600,000 occupants in a total of 100,000 residential units. Also the infra-network such as electricity, water supply, and streets will be constructed.

As well as the infra-network, the Government of Iraq will develop the public facilities such as education, religious, welfare, and commercial facilities as well as infra-structure such as Water and Sewage Treatment plants.

For successful performance of this project, NIC have examined numerous proposals of varied companies from all over the world, and became convinced that Hanwha E&C Corporation (“Hanwha”) is probably the most qualified developer and contractor Due to its cumulative knowledge on building/housing construction, city development, plant construction, civil and water treatment. Especially, Hanwha is the first and the only private company in Korea who has developed and constructed a new city accommodating 12,000 housing units all alone.

The new city project named EcoMetro New City in Korea, helped to convince Iraqi officials of its advanced technology and extensive experience. Hanwha has developed residential, commercial, cultural and educational facilities as well as the roads, water treatment plant and other infrastructure, on 239 Hectare area and brought a great success.

Many developers and contractors continue to visit EcoMetro New City from all over the World, and all have expressed sincere admiration to the quality of the project and Hanwha’s capabilities, while showing keen interest in cooperation with them for similar development projects around the world.

Also, Hanwha Group is one of Korea’s top 10 business groups with 53 domestic affiliates and 78 affiliates worldwide. Hanwha’s business portfolio includes various sectors; Manufacturing, Chemical, Solar, Energy, Construction, Insurance, Finance, IT, Hotel & Resort, Department store, and so on.

For the success of the BNCP, Hanwha signed MOU with Iraqi government in May 2011. In June, 2011, Hanwha formed a task force team of 150 professional engineers, architects, development managers, IT specialists, and finance specialists.

Hanwha task force team has had many technical meetings with NIC & Technical Committee in Baghdad and Seoul. With NIC & Technical Committee’s professional counsels and their sincere cooperation, In August, 2011, Hanwha and NIC completed the Master Plan, Basic Development plan, Unit Plan, Mechanical and Electronic Design.

Finally in May 30, 2012 Hanwha signed the official contract for the construction of BNCP. With the world’s media paying close attention, Hanwha Group Chairman ‘Seung-youn Kim’ and Iraqi Prime Minister ‘Nouri Kamil Al-Maliki’ was in attendance.

As for the construction of a base camp for BNCP, in which up to 26,000 workers would be accommodated at once, it is now a work in progress upon the work schedule. As well as the camp, a large scale Precast Concrete plant, which will produce a main structure of the housing units, is being constructed in the BNCP site. To the extent of the scale of BNCP, it has 8 districts, 839 buildings in 58 complexes, which is comprised of a total of 100,000 housing units on this site.

Currently, the number of Iraqi is 6 times more than Koreans working for BNCP, which is contributing in job opportunities and economic development. Furthermore, Hanwha will train Iraqi people at the Hanwha vocational training center until the completion of the BNCP in 2019.

On annual average, 20,000 units will be constructed for the following 5 years from 2015. Social infrastructure such as Schools, Clinics, and other Public facilities, and landscape will be developed along with the construction of the Residential Blocks at the same time. In 2019, with the construction of Central Business District, the seven-year development of BNCP will be completed.

Advice to the prospective buyers

Recently, Iraq has been faced with the lack of housing in the capital of IRAQ with increase in real-estate prices. Most Iraqi is hoping that BNCP will be the great alternative to afford new house nearby Baghdad.

BNCP is a part of national housing program guaranteed by Iraqi Government. That means prospective buyers don’t need to worry about fails of the project or losing their money. In addition, the construction of BNCP is going well upon the work schedule; a large number of new base camp buildings are built. Base camp is used to accommodate 26,000 construction workers who build New City.

Also, BNCP is well-planned city, which has the infrastructure including commercial, health, religious, welfare and entertainment centers as well as schools. Moreover, a modern road network is being built specifically for the project, linking it to the highway and thus connecting it to the Iraqi capital. All the facilities enable the customers to live conveniently. BNCP will suggest new Life-style in Iraq.

Until now, Iraqi publics have preferred stand-alone homes or villas over apartments. However, the most popular and universal life style in advanced cities of the world, including BNCP, is living in apartments which have invaluable benefits as above. Iraqis haven’t had much experience to live in apartments for a long time and they might doubt that it is like hanging in the air. But, once they live in apartments and feel how convenient to live, they begin to embrace it as their own culture of living.

The first patch of buyers have been settled in Bismayah new city in April, 2016.