Economic Event: IBC Board Member Mr. Louay Al-Saeed Represents the Iraqi Business Council at Rafidain
Board member of the Iraqi Business Council Mr. Louay Al-Saeed participated, as speaker on behalf of and representative of IBC Chairman Dr. Majid Saedi, in the Sixth Session of Rafidain Forum for Dialogue 2021, titled “A White Paper : Stage Requirements and Reform Path”, where Mr. Al-Saeed discussed the private sector’s vision of the White Paper, describing it as a paper for government reform and the extent of its seriousness to overcome the obstacles facing the Iraqi private sector, development plans and strategies, stressing the importance of applying the contents in the White Paper and applying the required government reforms, and the need for an independent national and government will.
Mr. Al-Saeed also talked about the lingering of several projects due to the lack of funding and government support. On the private sector’s views of the future prospects and partnership projects between the public and private sectors, especially they are limited to the ports and cement industries sectors Mr. Al-Saeed responded as saying: “the government must find the correct mechanism for the Iraqi private sector to benefit from, in addition to development plans and a clear investment chart, especially since many government projects have employment inflation, which fact prevents the private sector from investing in these projects, in addition to a number of measures imposed by the government on the private sector, heavily weighing on this sector, add to this the lack of confidence and commitment on part of the government, which reflected on the local and foreign investment leading to the failure of investment in Iraq”.
The Iraqi Minister of Planning Mr. Khaled Bettal Najim talked about the efforts exerted by the Ministry to extract the licensing rounds from the investment budget, and the Ministry of Planning’s keenness to work on the White Paper – Plan B. The Minister also stressed that Iraq will soon reach the highest population increase.
The Session was attended by Dr. Hussein Latif Kadim Al-Zubaidi / CEO of Rafidain Centre for Dialogue (RCD) / Session Chairman, Dr. Adnan Abid Khudeir Al-Zurfi / member of the Iraqi Parliament, Dr. Major General Omar Adnan Al-Waili / Head of the Border Ports Authority and Mr. Ihsan Shemran Al-Yasiri / Central Bank Deputy Governor. The Forum was also attended by IBC member Engineer Turkey Al-Qaissi.
