Mosul businessmen go solo to rebuild shattered economy

Some businessmen in Mosul have begun rebuilding their shattered premises without waiting for financial support from the cash-strapped Iraqi government who have failed to provide economic support for over a decade, or even without wanting to wait for the final defeat of Daesh in the city.

“If we wait for support, it could take a long time,” said Rafeh Ghanem, who owns an automotive spare-parts business in the eastern side of the city.

An airstrike by the US-led coalition supporting Iraqi troops in January reduced the two-storey building that houses his shop and dozens of others to a heap of rubble and twisted steel rods, devastating their livelihoods.

US and Iran-backed Iraqi forces took back the eastern side of Mosul in early February, after more than three months of fighting. They are now fighting Daesh in districts lying west of the Tigris river that bisects the city.

Read: Wild West Mosul

Ghanem said he and the 25 other businesses that rent space in the building agreed to contribute funds to help the landlord clear the debris and rebuild one of the two storeys.

Reconstruction started on 11 April and Ghanem hopes to return to business in three to four months.

He says waiting is of no use since the price of building materials is expected to rise as more reconstruction projects get under way, boosting demand for steel and cement.

The city, captured by Daesh in 2014, has suffered extensive damage as hundreds of houses and public buildings including the airport, the main railway station and the university have been destroyed.

The Iraqi military has long pursued a campaign that has seen massive infrastructure damage in Sunni Arab cities. Towns such as Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah were largely reduced to rubble, wracking up billions of dollars worth of damage that may see these Sunni Arab cities ignored by the Shia-dominated regime in Baghdad in any post-Daesh reconstruction effort.

Cement and steel prices have gone down steeply since the militants were defeated in eastern Mosul, as road connections have opened up with the rest of Iraq and Turkey, allowing supplies to resume.

A metric ton of cement used to sell for up to 350,000 Iraqi dinars ($300) after the militants took over nearly three years ago. It now costs 80,000 to 90,000, said an importer, Saif Ibrahim.

For Ghanem, there is no other choice but to rebuild the city which had a pre-war population of almost three two million.

We live in this city, we have to bring it back.