The port of Faw ... its business is faltering and officials attribute the reason to "effective action"!




2017/05/25 (00:01 PM) - Number of readings: 246 - Number (3932)


Basra / Ammar Saleh

Nearly eight years have passed since the laying of the foundation stone for the port project of Faw, but it is still going through faltering steps.

While accuse the Basra Governorate Council internal bodies shared with the wishes of countries blocking the completion of this strategic project, economists point out that the port if it was at least the first phase has been made to save the Iraqis to reduce the cost of transport to about 45%, and to increase the annual revenues of Iraqi ports by 6 times the current.


The port of Faw is scheduled to open its first phase during the current year, according to officials of the Ministry of Transport last year, to be completed in the year 2038, which will include, according to the basic designs developed by an Italian consulting company, a container berth length of 3500 meters, And another dock with a length of 2000 meters, as well as a storage area of ​​containers with an area of ​​more than one million square meters, and a multi-purpose arena with an area of ​​600 thousand square meters, while the estimated capacity of the port 99 million tons annually, and this is one of the most important strategic projects giant not in Iraq but also p Z in the region.

He confirms professor of economics at the University of Basra, d. Nabil Jaafar said in an interview with Al-Mada: "If the port of Faw was to have been completed, it would have provided the Iraqis with reductions in the cost of transportation ranging from 35 to 45 percent.

This would also provide this amount at the time of transport and would increase the annual revenues of Iraqi ports by six times the annual revenues current. "

Jafar adds that the imports of Iraqi ports, which now amounts to about 300 million dollars annually, will increase if the port of FAO in its first phase to $ 2 billion annually, and this figure could jump to $ 7 billion when the completion of the final phase of the project, and will contribute to the development of Infrastructure in the transport sector through the establishment and expansion of roads and railways, in addition to it will have important effects that attract foreign investment and improve the economic situation of the country, which establishes a free trade zone and increases the volume of Iraqi foreign trade with the outside world, and T is likely to exceed 40 million tons per year when operating the port .. This is only in the first stage. "

Completion of the first phase of the project will also provide 12 thousand jobs, Dr. Jaafar expects that once the project is completed, it must create 85,000 opportunities At the least, and adds: On the other hand will achieve Basra and Iraq net revenues derived from fees imposed on transit goods in Iraqi ports, according to the feasibility study prepared by an international company showed that there will be a value of traffic on each container across the dry canal by 100 Dollars, as well as other charges imposed on the freight estimated at seven dollars "Unfortunately, there are major challenges facing the implementation of this project, which is the lack of interest of the government and the absence of financial allocations and the lack of desire and national will to implement the project."

Director of Public Relations at Iraqi Ports Company, Anmar Al-Safi told Al-Mada in a brief interview that "work in the implementation of the breakwater is overseen and will be followed by the construction of facilities and pavements at the project site." The eastern breakwater is carried out by the Greek company Archi Rodbon, with a length of 8.5 km.

And does not exclude the head of the Basra Provincial Council Sabah al-Bezouni, the presence of participants between internal and external to block the completion of the port project of Faw, saying in an interview for (the extent) that "the non-activation of the project may be an effective action and not a subject of art or economic as he wants to say some, But there are countries that benefit from the continued status of the port as it is. "

Al-Bazzouni said that the port of Faw is that while it is considered a giant economic project that serves the province and the country in general, it can also affect many ports in the region such as Dubai, Kuwait and Iran. Therefore, these countries may not want to achieve it, The Ministry of Transport has previously put forward the project for investment, and we do not know why it was not invested, and it was not transferred to the joint work, which did not change anything in the field of completion of the project, however, which means that Basra will not be an economic capital without the implementation of the port of Faw, which is one of the main elements economic capital, and will not tcw There is the protection of all our waters without the implementation of the port. "

According to the current Minister of Transport Kazem Venjan al-Hamami in an article he wrote earlier, "The project of Port Mubarak will prevent the Iraqi ports from carrying out its usual business activities, seizing the last ports of the Iraqi Navy, aborting the port project of Faw, and encircling the entrance of the Shatt al-Arab on the one hand "The main problem is that the navigational channel designed to receive ships heading to the Kuwaiti port of Mubarak will be a joint channel between the Iraqi and Kuwaiti ships, which will take the same route to go, Second leg, which ships destined will Iraqi ports to many annoyances. "

It includes Basra province, five commercial ports, the first stronghold, a mother, which was founded in 1916, the port, and was a military follower of the British forces and handed over in 1937 to the Iraqis, in the early seventies was built port of Umm Qasr, which split into two ports are the port of Umm Qasr and Mina Abdullah, and in 1974 was built Khor Al-Zubair port and the port of Abu fils on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab, which is active recently because of growing imports by the private sector which constitutes imports ports ranked third in Iraq after the oil and telecommunications.

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