Deputy premier considers UAE firms’ participation in Iraq housing projects

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Rafie al-Issawi met on Friday with Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahayan, the CEO of the Royal Group for Real-Estate Investment, to discuss ways to have United Arab Emirates engineering firms participate in a project to build 500,000 out of a total three million housing units Iraq would need until 2015. “Issawi and his accompanying delegation continued meetings with government officials and chiefs of investment corporations in the UAE to discuss arrangements for political, trade and industrial partnerships,” according to a statement by Issawi’s office as received by IraqiNews.com news agency. “The investment, according to the estimations of the Iraq National Investment Commission (INIC), should exceed $500 billion in the fields of agriculture, transport, health and other sectors,” the statement quoted Issawi as saying. AmR (P) 1