Iraq signed on Saturday investment deals worth $1 billion in its energy, agriculture and finance sectors with the World Bank’s private sector arm, as the country seeks to build on its economic recovery following years of unrest.<\/p>\n
At a ceremony marking two decades of the International Finance Corporation’s presence in Iraq, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced the new contracts with his country’s private and public sectors.<\/p>\n
In as statement, the IFC announced “$1 billion in new investments and engagements in energy, infrastructure, agribusiness, and finance”.<\/p>\n
“Attracting foreign capital has contributed to supporting Iraq’s economic stability,” Sudani said.<\/p>\n
Sudani’s media office said the deals include a $500 million contract to invest in associated gas — the excess of natural gas released during oil drilling — and development of gas facilities in the southern province of Basra.<\/p>\n
Oil-rich Iraq has been trying to move past decades of war and unrest, but it still suffers from poor infrastructure, failing public services, mismanagement and endemic corruption.<\/p>\n
It has only recently regained a semblance of stability and authorities hope to attract investments across sectors.<\/p>\n
According to the International Monetary Fund, the country’s “non-oil economic growth has been slow, constrained by low productivity, limited investment and an inefficient use of human capital”.<\/p>\n
During the ceremony, Sudani praised Iraq’s private sector for implementing projects “despite bureaucratic issues, corruption and security challenges”.<\/p>\n
The Washington-based IFC says it has invested and mobilised more than $2.5 billion for projects in the country since 2005, during the height of the war that began with the US-led invasion.<\/p>\n
rh\/bha\/ser<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraq signed on Saturday investment deals worth $1 billion in its energy, agriculture and finance sectors with the World Bank’s private sector arm, as the country seeks to build on its economic recovery following years of unrest. At a ceremony marking two decades of the International Finance Corporation’s presence in Iraq, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[108,861,157,1830],"class_list":["post-10214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-economy","tag-investment","tag-iraq","tag-worldbank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}