Baghdad Mayor, Saber al-Issawi, released a statement that the city government received staggering offers and bids from 7 big foreign companies. The bid would include over 150,000 stores, parks, flats and cinemas which was estimated to be fully established within 10 years time in northeastern Baghdad alone. Who would not be attracted by this rare offer? And what is Iraq that foreign companies would bid to establish their future ventures?
In line with the bid from foreign companies, Iraq has been lining up a housing and commercial project worth $33 billion – $25 billion worth of housing units for unfortunate Iraqis in the reviving of Baghdad city and other provinces, and $8 billion for Iraqi ports to link the country to Syria, Jordan and Turkey. As the city government continues to lure foreign investors to resurrect the shattered economy, CBI sales for this period reached 94 million.
Things have been gotten up for both the government and financial institutions. Will this ever continue for the next five years? No one knows but, everyone is hopeful especially the Iraqi Cabinet. When Mayor Saber was interviewed just this week, he agreed to put $10 billion into the project.
If we consider the driving reason as to why the city government has been pushing towards the economy’s resurrection, Baghdad has been in a condition where it could hardly stand – decades of war and the UN sanctions imposed in 1990.
Take Sadr City as an example: This has been a large Shi’ite area at the northeastern part of the city. It has 7 million Iraqis suffering from electricity flickers (on and off) and lack of proper housing. Buildings in the area were battered by years of devastating war.
However, so much for shelters cobbled together for the area will be one of the major sites for the said construction project, stressed by Mayor Issawi. As a matter of fact, $870 is already allocated by the Iraqi Cabinet for the first construction year for Sadr city.
Iraq’s housing minister, Mohammed al-Darraji, even told the United Press International after his participation in the fourth executive office of the housing ministers in Indian Ocean and Asia last April 6, 2012, “We are trying with the World Bank to help us in building the housing units. The southern provinces need these units but we plan to cover all Iraqi provinces.”
So, the original plan was really to provide decent homes for all the provinces of the country. Just how determined is the housing minister of the country even if he had just escaped the traumatic assassination in the Capital of Baghdad last April 7 of this year!
To wrap up things, out of 27 interested companies and foreign investors, the city government only prequalified 7 companies to help them express their ventures for Sadr City. Some of the companies and investors include Broadway Malyan (UK-based architects), Halcrow Group, Woods Bagot (Australian based architects), some firms from the neighboring Arab world, consultants Pell Frischmann and structural engineers Buro Happold.
Moreover, the eastern part of Baghdad is the second site for construction which will include 65,000 flats. How much would this cost? The cost is estimated to be $20 billion good for 10 whole years. In short, the country is planning to reach 2 million homes between 2012 and 2015 – painstakingly challenging.
Although there has not yet been a concrete site for the third construction development, the third housing project is said to be in the western part of Baghdad city.
Just how massive this task can be? “We cannot do this by ourselves – we need international companies to get involved” Iraq’s Minister for Housing and Construction, Mohammed Sahib al-Darraji said.
***********************************************************
Written by DrDinar. This article may be
reprinted online and offline as long as this box remains and is hyperlinked online.
***********************************************************
