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Iraqi economy to recover in 2017 despite negative impacts

Xinhua, March 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

Iraq's economy is expected to recover in 2017 despite the falling oil prices, the political uncertainty and the deteriorating security situation in the Gulf country, industrialists from Iraq and its Gulf Arabian neighbors said on Monday.

"I can't say I am too optimistic for 2016, but I see light at the end of the tunnel in 2017," Dhia Al-Shakarchi, Chairman of the Iraqi Business Council in Abu Dhabi, said an informal meeting of company representatives from Iraq and its Gulf Arabian neighbors.

Ali Majeed Alwash, Middle Projects Division Manager at Iraq's State Company for Oil Projects (SCOP), said Iraq exports now 3.25 million barrels per day and if you include production of autonomous Kurdistan you can add another 600,000 barrels per day. But until now SCOP did not get any investments from foreign investors, but we are looking to get investments."

Regarding the partial occupation of the country by the Islamic State (IS), Alwash said "it does not affect the reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry because our operations are mostly in the south and partly in the middle of the country."

Western companies also expressed optimism that developments in 2016 will pave way for an economic rebound in 2017 in the OPEC member state.

Matteo Benincasa, Regional Head of Projects at Weir Oil and Gas Company from Scotland, told Xinhua "for the second half of 2016 we are more optimistic and we expect oil prices to rally further."

Despite political uncertainty and the oil slump in the last 18 months, his firm did not reduce activities, he added.

"Weir returned to Iraq in 2010 and we invested totally 20 million U.S. dollars in facilities in Rumaila in southern Iraq, south of the port city Basra, and half of our 200 employees in the Gulf state are local Iraqi experts," he said. Endit