Founding body elected for Arbil stock exchange

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: A 10-member founding body has been elected for the Arbil stock exchange, an economic advisor for the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG) said on Tuesday. “Members of the body include the chairman of the commerce and industry chamber for the region’s provinces, a number of company owners, producers and capitalists,” Abdullah Ahmed, who has also been elected to head the body, told IraqiNews.com. The body will soon visit Baghdad to discuss what assistance can be offered to help open the market. Earlier, the higher committee of the Iraqi Stock Exchange (ISX) urged the Arbil stock exchange to abide by instructions issued by the stock market. 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