Business News
New Zealand burger company moving into Iraq
May 6, 2011, 0:11 GMT
Wellington - A New Zealand company bent on challenging McDonald's international dominance of the fast food hamburger market announced Friday that it was moving into Iraq.
BurgerFuel Worldwide, which is listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, said it had sold a master franchise to an Iraqi consortium as part of a Middle East expansion programme.
It has already announced outlets in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
'We are interested in all global territories and we seek to take advantage of our non-American, pure-New Zealand, positioning, wherever we can,' chief executive Josef Roberts said.
The company's chief executive for international markets, Chris Mason who is based in Dubai, said, 'Whilst Iraq poses new challenges it's another important region and we think early establishment will allow time for us to eventually open a number of restaurants there.'
He said the first BurgerFuel in Iraq would open in Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish speaking region known as Iraqi Kurdistan.
Mason said the Iraqi consortium that had bought the rights for BurgerFuel Iraq also owned 50 per cent of Iraq's North Bank financial institution and 50 per cent of Pepsi Iraq.
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