Wheat, rice cargos arrive at Basra port

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: Basra’s port of Umm Qasr on Tuesday received two ships carrying wheat and rice, the Iraqi Ministry of Trade said. “Two ships carrying 51,603 tons of Romanian wheat and 31,582 tons of Thai rice arrived at Umm Qasr port to cover the needs of ration card items,” according to a ministry statement received by IraqiNews.com news agency. Iraq needs an estimated 330,000 tons of wheat and 90,000 tons of rice a month to cover ration card needs, the statement explained. The Shiite province of Basra, 590 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has five commercial ports and two oil ports: al-Maaqal, established in 1916 by the British forces and handed over to Iraqi authorities in 1937; and Faw, a small port on the al-Faw Peninsula near the Shatt al-Arab waterway and the Persian Gulf. In the early 1970s, Umm al-Qasr port was built, and in 1974, Khour al-Zubeir and Abu Fallous ports were established on the Shatt al-Arab. Basra is the cradle of the first civilization of Sumer. 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). 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. SS (S) 1