Posted on 03/24/2002 3:16:57 PM PST by Lessismore
BAGHDAD: Representatives of 66 Saudi firms have arrived in Baghdad to take part in an international building exhibition, organisers said yesterday.
The Saudi participants will be among 250 firms from some 30 countries taking part in the fair, which opens today, the sources said. Other countries represented include Germany, France, Greece, Iran, the UAE, Algeria, Syria and Egypt.
Twenty-eight Saudi firms are displaying their wares in another Arab exhibition that has been under way in Baghdad under the theme of Iraq's reconstruction, Khaled Dhaw, who is in charge of the Saudi pavilion, told the Iraqi weekly Al Ittihad.
An exhibition of Saudi medical products will also be staged in Baghdad soon, said Dhaw. He gave no date for the event, which would be the first of its kind since the two countries severed diplomatic ties during the 1991 Gulf War.
The general manager of the Saudi Pharmaceutical Industries Co., Abdullah Al Abdulqader, said recently that his firm had won a contract to supply Iraq with 14 million locally manufactured rheumatism tablets under the UN oil-for-food programme.
Private Saudi firms have concluded deals with Baghdad under the program despite the absence of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
The head of external relations at the Iraqi trade ministry, Fakhreddin Rissan, said in March 2001 that his country had signed $600 million worth of contracts with Saudi firms.
n France is Iraq's top European trade partner, with business between Iraq and France amounting to $3.8 billion since the start of the UN oil-for-food programme in 1996, the official INA news agency reported yesterday. Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh announced the figures at the reopening of the commercial section of the Iraqi embassy in France. Saleh added he expected "a re-establishment of full commercial ties with France," INA said.
Iraq has lived under economic sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and can legally export its oil only through the UN-run oil-for-food programme, which allows Iraq to use its oil revenues for the purchase of humanitarian goods
AFP
I think this is all for the re-building effort ... like you said, after the war.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.