The country's iron and steel company aims to develop the sector in line with current technology through investment

Iraq seeks to boost iron and steel industry

photo_camera AFP/FABRICE COFFRINI - Iraqi President Barham Saleh at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, 22 January 2020.

After years of war and instability, Iraq is looking to revive the iron and steel industry, a sector that could stimulate the country's struggling economy, which has been ravaged by conflict and political corruption.

The state-owned iron and steel company, located in Khor Al Zubair, southwest of Basra, has offered several investment opportunities to boost the industry. The investments will be carried out in accordance with modern technology with the aim of expanding work and thus production.

"The company has made an investment announcement to establish a factory for the production of sponge iron as an alternative to steel, which will run out in about two years," explained Musallam Nasser, the company's general manager. Sponge iron or sponge iron is made by reducing the ores that form normal iron.

atalayar_irak petroleo

Nasser explained another proposed investment project that consists of building a factory with a capacity of 3 million tonnes per year to produce billets (steel bars without polished corners). This industrial centre would contain melting furnaces with advanced and modern technology, as the company's manager assures. The factories that the company wants to create would depend on an industrial centre with a capacity of 250 megawatts. This energy would equip the facilities according to their needs.

Boosting this sector would be a major boost to Iraq's overall economy. Currently, the Arab country is suffering from a production deficit, in addition to falling oil prices. Moreover, it has to cope with the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Iraq's industrial infrastructure has deteriorated significantly since the US invasion in 2003. Subsequently, war, terrorism and corruption caused the sector to sink further and further.

atalayar_Puerto de Um Qasr, el principal de Irak

Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals has acknowledged the "enormous difficulties" of financing the revival of steel mills. "The factories of the General Iron and Steel Company need large sums of money to revive them," said Mortada Al-Safi, spokesman for the Ministry of Industry.  Al-Safi also reported that years ago the government designed a project to rehabilitate the factories through the Turkish UB Holding Group.

Baghdad's aim was to reactivate and repair the 83 factories in various regions of the country that had been paralysed after being destroyed by terrorist groups or many of their machines had become obsolete. Boosting the industrial sector has become one of the key items on the Iraqi government's agenda. Two industrial centres have recently been inaugurated, one of them in the Di Car Governorate in the south of the country. In addition, 16 factories and production lines were opened in May last year. The take-off of this sector could provide hope for Iraq's fragile economy. 

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