Now for something completely different….
Believe it or not, events occur in Iraq in which no one dies. The growth of entrepreneurship since the fall of the Ba’ath Party has been accompanied by an proliferation of Iraqi business websites. Some of these are in English as well as Arabic.
Below are some recent tidbits from our personal favorite:
The Northern Pipeline reopens
As DD has reported, daily oil production in Iraq has climbed back to its pre-war level of 2.1 million barrels per day. It reached that benchmark in March, and has held there ever since.
But roughly one-third of Iraq’s export capacity has been shut down. The northern oil pipeline to Turkey, which handled exports of 700,000 barrels per day pre-war, has been offline since the invasion – a victim of sabotage and poor maintenance. Iraq’s petroleum export industry has depended exclusively on the southern terminal in Basra, shipping roughly 1.5 million barrels per day.
Quietly, and with no public announcement, the northern pipeline re-opened on June 14th. Its initial output — 21,000 barrel per day — was trivial compared to its potential, rated at a million barrels per day. But it was a beginning.
Oil find
Oil experts argue over the size of Iraq’s reserves – whether Iraq rates second or third in the world. A lot of nations, a lot of companies, are interested in these reserves.
In 2005, the Norwegian independent DNO reached an agreement with Kurdish authorities to run tests in the Tawke oil field. On June 12, 2006, DNO Managing Director Helge Eide announced that test drilling had harvested 5,000 barrels per day — oil of sufficient quality to warrant the installation of production facilities. DNO plans to have these facilities online by the first quarter of 2007.
DNO became the first western firm to produce oil in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Its stock promptly rose 6.9 percent.
Trade regulations
Under the national socialist ideology of the Ba’ath, foreign investment was an evil, to be thwarted by law, or confiscated by caprice. One visible consequence of this rejection of western engineering was the rickety condition of the infrastructure inherited first by the Coalition Governing Authority, then by the elected Iraqi government. Oil, electricity, sewage – everything was out-of-date and under-maintained.
One clear effect of American influence on democratic Iraq is the pending revision of Iraq’s dated, socialist investment laws. We quote:
Dr. Abdul Falah Al Sodani, the Minister of Trade, has confirmed that the government is close to introducing new investment laws which will allow foreign investors to receive the same treatment as Iraqi investors, allowing them to transfer 100% of profits, investments, and company ownership.
The article mentions one early return on Iraq’s open trade policy: The volume of Iraq’s monthly trade with Turkey has roughly quintupled over the past year.
Tal Afar
The Iraqi government – not the U.S. government – earmarked $37 million in development funds for several new projects in war-ravaged Tal Afar, famous first as an insurgent stronghold, then as a coalition reclamation success. Among them:
- Warehousing capacity for area farmers
- A public library with internet facilities
- A new wall for the historical Qalaa archeological district
- A public park, with a man-made lake.
GDP
Here are the most recent year-to-year economic estimates for the Iraqi economy, from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund:
- Nominal GDP is projected to increase from $33.2 billion (USD) in 2005 to $41.7 billion in 2006.
- Per capita GDP (again in U.S. Dollars) is projected to increase from $1,189 to $1,452.
- Real GDP (inflation-adjusted) is slated to increase 10.4%, 2005 to 2006.
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Life goes on in Iraq, in addition to death.