Chambers of Commerce conf. in Sulaimaniya

SULAIMANIYA / IraqiNews.com: The Iraqi Chambers of Commerce conference on Thursday opened in the northern city of Sulaimaniya with the participation of the heads of chambers from all Iraqi provinces. The chairman of the Iraqi Chambers of Commerce, Jaafar al-Hamdani, gave a speech during the opening ceremony of the one-day conference. The modern city of Sulaimaniya, 364 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, was founded in 1748 by a Kurdish prince known as Ibrahim Pasha Baban who named it for his father Sulaiman Pasha. Since being founded as the capital of a powerful Kurdish principality it has grown to about 1,800,000 people. Sulaimaniya, known as Zamwa prior to its founding, is the cultural center of the Sorani-speaking Kurds and an important economic centre for Iraqi Kurdistan. SS (P) 1