Tourist park to be set up south of Basra

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: Under the supervision of Basra’s construction unit, a local company on Tuesday initiated work on a project to establish a tourist park along the Shatt al-Arab waterway in the south of Basra. The project, whose total cost is $1.7 million, will be carried out as part of the 2008 provincial development projects, the head of the unit, Engineer Ziyad Ali Fadhil, told IraqiNews.com. The estimated completion period of the project in six months, the engineer added. Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008. Basra, a Shiite province with 20% of the population are Sunnis, is the cradle of the first civilization of Sumer. It has the seven main Iraqi ports. The first built in Islam 14 A.H. (After Hegira), the city played an important role in early Islamic history. The area surrounding Basra has substantial petroleum resources and many oil wells. The city’s oil refinery has a production capacity of about 140,000 barrels per day (bpd). The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra is in a fertile agricultural region, with major products including rice, maize corn, barley, pearl millet, wheat and dates as well as livestock. A network of canals flowed through the city, giving it the nickname “The Venice of the Middle East” at least at high tide. The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra has the commercial ports of Iraq. SS (S)/SR 1