Iraqi president to make investment pitch at UN next week

Sep 16, 2009, 11:53 GMT

Baghdad - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani will argue that Iraq is a secure place for investment in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York next week, his office said Wednesday.

Talabani will review recent 'security achievements' in Iraq and make the case that the country presents an attractive destination for foreign investment in his address to the UN's 64th General Assembly, Nasser al-Ani, Talabani's chief of staff, told Baghdad's daily al- Sabah newspaper.

Though the number of attacks in Iraq has declined in recent years, the country still suffers from daily lethal attacks, and insurgents have lately mounted a series of high-profile assaults on Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

Rockets fell on the Green Zone hours after US Vice President Joe Biden arrived on Tuesday night. In a message posted to an Islamist website, the Mujahedin Army insurgent group called the rocket attack 'a reception' for the US vice president.

On August 19, a coordinated series of bomb blasts killed around 100 people, left 1,200 wounded, and destroyed much of the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance.

The Iraqi government has repeatedly highlighted opportunities for investment in Iraqi infrastructure, telecommunications, and energy projects.

But many of the world's largest energy companies balked at the Iraqi government's terms in a June auction for rights to develop some of the country's largest oil and gas fields, the first such tender in Iraq in nearly three decades.

A consortium led by British Petroleum (BP) and China National Petroleum Co. agreed to boost production from the Rumaila field from 1.1 million barrels a day to 2.85 million barrels a day in exchange for 2 US dollars a barrel.

No other companies were willing to accept the government's terms for the rights to develop the other fields.