Industry ministry partakes in Arbil trade fair

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: An official source from the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Minerals on Tuesday said that it will participate in the 4th Arbil Trade Fair on Iraq reconstruction, scheduled to open tomorrow. “A total of 23 companies from the ministry’s departments of construction, chemicals, petrochemicals, textile, and engineering will participate in the fair, which will take place from October 15-19,” according to a ministerial statement received by IraqiNews.com. “These companies will compete to display their best products…,” the statement noted. “An estimated 500 international and specialized companies from 22 regional and foreign countries will also take part in the fair,” the statement added. Arbil, also written Erbil or Irbil , is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited in the world and is one of the largest cities in Iraq . The city lies eighty kilometers (fifty miles) east of Mosul . In 2005, its estimated population was 990,000 inhabitants. The city is the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region and the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG). It hosts the headquarters of the Kurdistan region ministers and parliament. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, only isolated, sporadic violence has hit Arbil, unlike many other areas of Iraq . Parallel bomb attacks against the Eid celebrations arranged by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan RegionG President Massoud Barazani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) killed 109 people on February 1, 2004. Responsibility was claimed by the Islamist group Ansar al-Sunnah, and stated to be in solidarity with the Kurdish Islamist faction Ansar al-Islam. Another bombing on May 4, 2005 killed 60 civilians. Despite these bombings the population generally feels safe. SS (S) 1