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Trade Show Highlights Progress in
Kurdistan-Erbil
19.9.2006
By U.S. Army Sgt. Frank Pellegrini
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More than 800 companies from
27 countries were represented inside a makeshift
convention center in the capital of the Kurdistan
region.
Erbil, Kurdistan-Iraq, September 19, -- It was
just an ordinary trade show - booths papered with
colorful displays and overflowing with brochures. It
was the hum of business, the sound of sales pitches
and the slap of handshakes.
Except this trade show was in Iraq.
The city of Erbil hosted “Rebuild Iraq 2006” Sept.
14-17. More than 800 companies from 27 countries
were represented inside a makeshift convention
center in the capital of the Kurdistan region. Raid
Rahmani, an engineer and chairman of the Iraqi
Economic Development Corporation, had just two
months to put the event together, but said he had
little trouble filling the hall.
“People see that now is the time to come together
and do business in Iraq,” he said.
Visiting Erbil to kick off the expo, U.S. Ambassador
to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad hailed the show as an
opportunity for the province of Kurdistan to show
off its successes.
“The image that people have of Iraq around the world
is violence in the city of Baghdad. But all of Iraq
is not that,” he said during a tour of the city.
“Kurdistan is an area where there is security, where
there is economic activity, where there is
prosperity,” Khalilzad said. “To the businesspeople
around the world, I say, come and satisfy the market
in Kurdistan.”
By the looks of the expo, they were already there.
U.S. firms GM, Ford, Motorola, FedEx,
air-conditioning giant Carrier, generator maker
Cummins, and Secure Global Engineering all had
booths. French firm Electrolux was there. Volkswagen
sold cars inside; Daimler-Chrysler preferred the
outdoor lot. Local companies hawked licensed
services ranging from Western Union money transfers
and Hitachi washing machines to Showtime television.
The Trade Bank of Iraq was trumpeting a new deal
with Visa that allowed Iraqis traveling abroad to
have their statement recorded in Iraqi dinars when
they returned home – a boost for the local currency
and a convenience most of the developed world takes
for granted.
One row of booths was filled entirely with
businesses from Iran and Syria. |
Andew Wylegala, center, and John Lumborg, both of
the U.S. Commercial Service, talk business with
Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani at
“Rebuild Iraq 2006.” The U.S.C.S., a division of the
Commerce Department, helps U.S. and other foreign
companies find suitable business partners in Iraq.
Photo:Defense Dept.
GM was one of more than 800 companies from 27
countries at “Rebuild Iraq 2006,” an international
trade expo Sept. 14-17 in Erbil, Kurdistan (Iraq).
photo: Defense Dept. |
“We are all businessmen. We don’t interfere in
politics,” Rahmani said. “If any company would like
to add something to our country, they are most
welcome.”
A contingent of U.S. military was also there – but
only to shop.
“We’re looking for firms to work with us in Mosul,”
said Navy Lt. Cmdr Larry Kelley, economic and
agricultural section leader for the Ninewa
Provincial Reconstruction Team, as he talked with
representatives from KAR, a Kurdistan construction
and oil services firm.
“There’s a great business environment up here, and
we want to help it spread,” Kelley said.
In 1992, Rahmani was in Jordan when his businessman
father was kidnapped and later killed because he
refused to do business with Saddam. He returned to
Baghdad after the U.S.-led Coalition toppled
Hussein’s regime in 2003, and said he is trying to
bring his international contacts to bear in Iraq.
“We have rights now in this country, and we also now
have duties to do for our country,” Rahmani said.
“One of our duties is to work in this difficult
situation…to rebuild the new Iraq.”
Erbil, a city of about 600,000 nestled among fertile
wheat fields and set off by rolling mountain ranges
to the north and east, certainly appears to be the
place to start. City streets are lined with the
construction sites of commercial and residential
complexes with names like “Dream City” and “Empire
World.” Within view of the airport, a dozen brand
new 11-story condominiums rise out of the flat,
dusty ground. The units have all been pre-sold.
The Kurdistan Regional Government, envisioning the
city and region as “the gateway to the rest of Iraq”
is bankrolling a $250 million expansion of Erbil
International Airport, with a new international
terminal, first-class lounges and enlarged runways
capacious enough for Boeing and Airbus’ latest
behemoths.
A half-hour outside the city, on the banks of the
Great Zab River, the KRG is working with the U.S.
Army Corps of
Engineers at the Ifriz Water Treatment Plant to
triple the plant’s capacity by the end of the year.
But the talk of “Rebuild Iraq 2006” was a new
investment law, passed by the KRG two months ago,
that businessmen say welcomes foreign companies to
Kurdistan with open arms.
“Most simply, it makes no distinction between Iraqi
investors and foreign investors,” said Rahmani. “It
is very helpful for encouraging foreign investors.”
At the opening of the expo, Kurdistan Prime Minister
Nechirvan Barzani hailed the law as enabling “good
ties between the employers, traders, local companies
and their collaborators outside Kurdistan,” and said
private-sector investment would be the region’s
fastest path to prosperity while “our government’s
power is limited by the federal government in
Baghdad.”
In short, Erbil is home to the sort of tranquil
security environment, effective government and
economic promise of which Baghdad, for now, can only
dream of.
What’s Kurdistan’s secret?
The region has had some advantages compared to the
rest of the country. For all the brutal treatment
the Kurds received at the hands of Saddam Hussein,
the U.N.-imposed “no-fly zone,” enforced by U.S. and
British forces in the wake of the Gulf War, gave
Kurdistan a head-start on development.
“Kurdistan has had 13-14 years free of Saddam’s
direct influence,” said Harry Schute, a former Army
Reserve call-up to Iraq who later returned to head a
consulting firm called ‘Point 62’ in Kurdistan.
“They were able to do a lot on their own, chart a
path, and in that sense they’ve had a head start,”
Schute said.
The region’s relative ethnic homogeneity and strong
regional identity give it another advantage.
But even the Kurds endured a fairly bloody internal
conflict. From 1994-1996 the rival Kurdish
Democratic Party and the Peoples Union of Kurdistan
fought for supremacy.
The government finally unified in late 1996, and
though it has doubly suffered from both U.N. and
Saddam-imposed sanctions, the U.S.-led operation in
2003 found the region poised to prosper.
“This is a completely different part of Iraq
compared to what you see on television. Folks who
are interested in getting into a ground floor
environment, this is the place to be,” Schute said.
“And for all the media paints the Kurds as wanting
to split off, my experience is that the government
here really wants to be part of the solution for the
whole country.”
For now, though, to much of the outside world,
Kurdistan is still ‘Iraq.’ Walled off from foreign
investment for more than a decade and now
stigmatized by persistent violence in Baghdad, many
foreign investors still feel insecure about risking
capital here.
“Iraq and Iraqi companies have been cut off in many
ways from American companies, from global commerce,
for so long, there’s a trust barrier … an
information gap,” said Andrew Wylegala of the U.S.
Commercial Service, which had its own booth at the
expo and worked with Rahmani to organize it. “But
when you get here, you can’t help but be bullish
about Kurdistan - as a market in itself, as a
gateway for getting into the rest of Iraq, and as a
motor that’s going to drive the rest of Iraq.”
Most participants, including Rahmani, who has his
sights on Basra for a similar expo in 2007, saw a
north-south spread of commerce as simply “a matter
of time.”
“Kurdistan really is ‘the other Iraq’ at the
moment,” said Mia Early of the London-based
Kurdistan Development Corporation. “But we’re hoping
that by building a sound base for investment in
Kurdistan, it will really be the model for the rest
of Iraq to follow when the smoke clears.”
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