Hundreds of businesses across Asia are preparing to invest in Iraq despite the dangers, US officials on a regional roadshow to promote investment in the war-torn country said here yesterday.
Singaporean, Chinese, South Korean, Japanese and Australian investors have all shown strong interest over the past two months in grabbing a share of the US$18 billion in US government contracts on offer, they said.
The Iraq Reconstruction Project Opportunities roadshow, comprising officials from the US government and Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority, has also stopped in Seoul and Sydney, as well as European and Middle East nations, since the beginning of March.
The communication and planning director with the Coalition Provisional Authority's program management office, Jonathon Thompson, said that more than 600 business people from North Asia attended the Seoul briefing.
A further 100 businesses were represented at each of the Singapore and Sydney briefings, with Thompson reporting unanimous enthusiasm among the delegates for venturing into Iraq.
"I have not experienced any company in all of these meetings who are reluctant to participate. They wouldn't be here if they were," Thompson said on the sidelines of the Singapore seminar.
Ted Tan, the assistant chief executive officer at International Enterprise Singapore, the city-state's trade promotion board, also said many local firms were poised to invest in Iraq.
"A lot of companies are really serious about going to Iraq. They are looking at working out concrete plans with the primary contractors," Tan said.
Tan said a number of Singapore companies had already set up operations in countries neighboring Iraq and were waiting for the security risks to subside before venturing across the border.
The director of Singaporean construction firm Wee Engineers, Liew Chee Kian, attended yesterday's seminar and said his firm hoped to set up operations in Iraq in the next six to 12 months.
"US$18 billion is a lot of money and the country is so big," Liew said. "It's going to take many years to rebuild the country so the opportunities are definitely there."
Asked about the dangers of working in Iraq, Liew said he did not believe it was as dangerous as made out in the world's press.
"The media is always giving reports on the negative side. There are a lot of good sides that aren't publicized. There are a lot of areas that are quite safe," he said.
The regional sales manager for Singapore-listed Dayen Environmental water treatment company, Ang Kwee Huat, also said his firm was keen to set up operations in Iraq but he was more circumspect about the dangers.
"We see so many people being kidnapped and Singapore is one of the countries that supports the Americans so we could be a target too ... maybe I'd say I am from China instead," he said.
The US officials speaking at the seminar touched on Iraq's security problems but their main focus was business, highlighting the US$18 billion the US Congress recently approved for reconstructing the country.
"The sheer breadth of these funds will touch virtually every sector of the economy in Iraq," Thompson told the delegates, adding everything from major infrastructure projects to health care and supplying police uniforms needed foreign investors.
"The rebuilding of Iraq, in the most basic of terms, is the single largest construction project for one country in the world's history."
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS