Four major Basra Free Port Zone investment contracts signed

Four contracts have been signed by the General Authority for Free Zones of the Ministry of Finance with SK Energy Holdings UAE company. The said contracts will be for a free port zone investment in Khor Al-Zubair of Basra Province.

The first contract signed with the company dealing with oil products has a land area covering 20,000 square meters.

It was also stated that as part of the contract, another area covering 1600 square meters will be developed as second service project. Once established, it will take care of logistics, special oil services and maintenance services for oil projects.

The last two contracts on the other hand, were signed with the company for commercial activity purposes. One area under these two contracts has a total of 30,000 square meters, added the authority.

Arab and foreign investments in the free zones ushered in the flow of these recent investment activities in the area.

Free zones in Iraq are found in Fulayfel in the province of Nineveh, another one based in the province of Anbar and three in Khor Al-Zubair in Basra.

More free zones are seen to be developed in Iraq after provinces in the country including Diyala and Najaf made the requests following advantages observed in neighboring countries.

Law No. 3 of 1998 passed in 1999 should have set the motion of free port zones creation in Iraq but whatever was built back then succumbed to the war that erupted in 2003.