Iraqi entrepreneurs seek to boost trade with Ukraine in poultry production and petrochemicals exports.
Head of Iraqi-Ukrainian Business Council Abbas Al-Noori told the Kyiv Post that Iraqi investors plan to invest $15 million into a poultry farm in Kyiv Oblast, Ruby Rose Agricole Ltd., which hasn’t operated for several years.
“We are at the negotiations stage to restart the production. I’m sure we’ll get the project, and it will cover 30 percent of Iraq’s need in Ukrainian chicken,” Al-Noori said.
Like other Middle Eastern states, Iraq is heavily dependent on grain and meat imports, and thus views Ukraine as a major supplier to prevent food crisis.
Ukrainian agricultural producers have been exporting a wide range of foods to Iraq and have obtained Halal certifications required by Muslim countries.
“Ukrainian products are considered high-quality in Iraq,” said Oleksii Solonenko, the representative of Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce in Iraq.
Iraq’s oil-based economy is slowly rehabilitating after years of conflict. Currently, it follows the OPEC accord to limit crude oil production to fight global oil glut that kept prices down. But once the deal is finished in mid-2018, Iraq plans to increase production.
“We need Ukraine’s experience in oil refining,” Al-Noori said saying that his country will rebuild its oil refineries, adding that it could also fulfill Ukraine’s demand in petrochemicals.
In his words, they are in talks with a Kyiv-based print and packaging company over the exports of 250,000 metric tons of polyethylene from a petrochemicals factory in Basra in southern Iraq which plans to restart production in 2018.
Iraq has massively suffered from 2003 invasion of the United States followed by eight years of war and then seizure of its territories by the Islamic State. In July Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al-Abadi declared victory over the Islamic State forces in Mosul, a city in Northern Iraq.
But Al-Noori says media show only half-truth.
“The war affected some regions in Iraq while others, which remained untouched, are developing.” he said.
“I think Ukraine and Iraq face the same problems to a certain extent: war, economic crisis, and negative image. But I believe the situation will get stable.”
Business goes on despite instability, says Oleksii Solonenko.
The volume of trade between two countries amounted to over $450 million with 80 percent of it for exports from Ukraine, according to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. In the first quarter of 2017 Ukraine has exported goods to Iraq for $200 million.
But the real volume is much bigger, up to a billion dollars, Solonenko says explaining that many shipments from Ukraine go through other countries – Lebanon, Turkey, UAE.
