Saudi companies looking for new opportunities in Iraq to cover up the losses of the embargo on Qatar

Saudi companies are heading towards Iraq to look for investment opportunities to cover up the losses that it faced due the repercussions of the economic embargo on Qatar.

On Wednesday, Iraqi officials said that 60 Saudi companies will participate, for the first time since nearly 27 years, in the forty-fourth session of Baghdad International Fair, which is scheduled at the end of October.

A high-rank Iraqi official at the Ministry of Commerce in Baghdad informed The New Arab that, so far, 60 companies have been registered at the International Fair. Therefore, a large pavilion has been allocated for Saudi companies for the first time.

According to the official, the Saudi companies that have officially registered at Baghdad International Fair are from different sectors, including iron, steel, cement and phosphate companies, electric machines and food companies, such as Almarai and Al Rabie, as well as clothing and carpet companies, and other products, in addition to car assembly companies, electronics, and construction companies.

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The official added: “It can be said that Saudi companies include most of the sectors that Baghdad International Fairfocuses on in its current version, as it seeks to attract companies that would contribute in reconstructing and rehabilitating the destroyed cities.”

The forty-fourth session of Baghdad International Fair will take place on 21 October, 2017 and will last until the 30th of the same month.

Observers believe that Saudi Arabia’s trade openness to Iraq is part of Saudi efforts to compensate its large companies, which suffered heavy losses as a result of their participation in the embargo which Saudi Arabia and other countries imposed on Doha and led to the termination of their business in Doha.

The Iraqi economic expert and adviser to the Iraqi market for securities Ahmed Jamal al-Hashimi, said that, through its intensive participation in the International Fair, Saudi Arabia wants to cover up its companies’ losses resulting from the Embargo on Qatar on the one hand, and to cut the way on Iran, which drowned the Iraqi market with goods for future political  reasons, and to save the Iraqi economy from the Iranian domination on the other.

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This development in relations between the two countries comes about a month after the visit of Saudi Minister of Commerce Majid al-Kasabi to Iraq, heading an official delegation that included representatives of private and public sectors companies in Saudi Arabia. The visit resulted in signing an agreement with the Iraqi side on both sides need to open up in all economic and investment fields and to stimulate trade exchange between the two countries.