Iraqis won’t allow building of port, affecting Iraq’s economy, MP says

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: An Iraqi Legislature, representing the National Coalition has called on Tuesday for necessity to take a technical, economic and political action towards the passive impact for the construction of Kuwait ’s Mubarak Port on the Iraqi economy.   “The Mubarak Port shall be laid under study and viewpoints of Iraqi economists will be taken into consideration about the passive impact of this port on the Iraqi economy in general and Iraq ’s Faw Port in special,” Legislature Batoul Farouq told IraqiNews.com news agency.   She said that “this issue needs a technical opinion, as well as a political one,” reiterating that “everybody won’t accept the construction of a port that would have a passive impact on the Iraqi economy.”   Noteworthy is the foundation stone for the Grand Faw Port was laid down in Faw Peninsula in southern Iraq’s Basra Province, for the cost of 4.6 billion (b) Euros, with an estimated planned capacity reaching 99 million tons per annum, to become the largest port on the Arab Gulf Region.   Iraqi officials said they had began initiating plans and preparations to implement the port, final designs for which would be laid at the end of the current year, by an Italian Company, which shall begin its works in the beginning of 2012, on two phases, each carrying 2 years.   The port will be connected by ground through ground and railways, with Turkey and Syria , to carry different luggage transportation.   SKH (RT)     959