Al-Ushar municipality building project completed in Basra

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: The project of setting up al-Ushar municipality building in central Basra was completed with a total cost of 791 million dinars within plan to develop provinces in 2008, the director of the Basra reconstruction unit said on Wednesday. “The two-storey building consists of 20 rooms, in addition to two gardens and a garage,” Ziyad Ali Fadel told IraqiNews.com. “The project worth 791 million dinars and the work ended in six months by a local company,” he noted. Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008. Basra, a Shiite province with 20% of the population are Sunnis, is the cradle of the first civilization of Sumer. It has the seven main Iraqi ports. The first built in Islam 14 A.H. (After Hegira), the city played an important role in early Islamic history. The area surrounding Basra has substantial petroleum resources and many oil wells. The city’s oil refinery has a production capacity of about 140,000 barrels per day (bpd). The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra is in a fertile agricultural region, with major products including rice, maize corn, barley, pearl millet, wheat and dates as well as livestock. A network of canals flowed through the city, giving it the nickname “The Venice of the Middle East” at least at high tide. The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra has the commercial ports of Iraq. SH (S) 1