Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 06/10/2010 - 24/01/2011

Honeywell Expands into Iraq with New Baghdad Office :ro_emote: :smiley:

Full-Service Operation Delivers Advanced Technology Solutions to Oil & Gas Customers; Additional Offices Planned Throughout Country

Honeywell (NYSE:HON) today announced it is making a significant investment in Iraq by opening a full-service office in Baghdad. Other offices are being planned in southern and northern Iraq over the next few years. The Baghdad office will supply technology solutions such as process automation equipment to Iraq's oil and gas industry, which is in the midst of re-construction.

Honeywell is hiring talented local employees, including a number of young engineers who will be enrolled in the company's Junior Engineer Talent Programme, a global curriculum providing extensive training on Honeywell solutions and project management skills. The local employees will join a team of expatriates with deep, specialized experience in both process automation and the oil and gas and refining industries.

"Honeywell is uniquely positioned to play a key role in the reconstruction and development of Iraq," said Norm Gilsdorf, president of Honeywell Process Solutions. "We are committed to a full-scale presence in order to most effectively manage projects and build and nurture local relationships. Our diverse portfolio of products and services across a range of industries allows us to serve Iraq's needs extensively, while our strong local presence will deliver an exceptional customer service experience."

The company is inviting local customers - including engineers, supervisors, operators and managers - to visit the Baghdad headquarters, which will showcase the full breadth of Honeywell's vast technology portfolio. That portfolio spans everything from industrial automation to security systems, specialty chemicals and aviation technology. In addition to industrial manufacturers such as oil refiners, the larger Honeywell International corporation serves a wide array of industries including education, commercial and residential facilities, aerospace companies and automotive manufacturers.

"The diverse nature of our technology and global customers truly makes Honeywell an exciting place to work because we get the chance to touch nearly every critical technology industry in the world," Gilsdorf said. "For decades, we have focused on creating solutions for our customers' problems, and that has paved the way for some of our most innovative technologies."

Honeywell initiated its entry into Iraq through close collaboration with the US Department of Defense Task Force for Business and Stability Operations as well as the Iraqi National Investment Commission, which provided local assistance and counsel.

Honeywell International (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes and industry; automotive products; turbochargers; and specialty materials. Based in Morris Township, N.J., Honeywell's shares are traded on the New York, London, and Chicago Stock Exchanges. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywellnow.com.

Honeywell Process Solutions is part of Honeywell's Automation and Control Solutions group, a global leader in providing product and service solutions that improve efficiency and profitability, support regulatory compliance, and maintain safe, comfortable environments in homes, buildings and industry. For more information about Process Solutions, access www.honeywell.com/ps.

This release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. All statements, other than statements of fact, that address activities, events or developments that we or our management intend, expect, project, believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on management's assumptions and assessments in light of past experience and trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other relevant factors. They are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results, developments and business decisions may differ from those envisaged by our forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements are also subject to risks and uncertainties, which can affect our performance in both the near- and long-term. We identify the principal risks and uncertainties that affect our performance in our Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZA...ghdad%20Office

US army bids to build up mental 'resilience' in Iraq

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Oct 05, 2010 (AFP) - US efforts to help soldiers deal with the stress of war vary, but perhaps none are more unusual than those of Dave Roever, a Vietnam veteran who peppers tales of his own demons with dry wit.

The 63-year-old recounts seeing his wife visit him in a Texas military hospital after he returned from his only tour to Vietnam with a brutal injury. Having already attempted suicide once before while at a clinic in Japan on his way back to the United States, Roever notes he was fearful his wife would, upon seeing his disfigured face, leave him.

"Davey," she told him, "You were never good looking anyhow."

The frank account draws a sudden burst of applause and laughter from several hundred soldiers listening to the bespectacled, portly man clad in cargo pants and a polo shirt, speaking outside "Resiliency Campus."

Opened last month at Contingency Operating Base Basra in Iraq's south, the campus is one of two in the country with a chaplain and dietician along with massage chairs -- all designed to help soldiers cope with the stress of war.

The US army has dramatically reduced its number of soldiers in Iraq to less than 50,000 at present, less than a third of the peak figure during "the surge" of 2007, ahead of a complete withdrawal due by the end of next year. Asked why, seven and a half years following the US-led invasion of 2003 and after the declaration of an official end to combat operations here a month ago, the army has taken these recent steps, Major General Vincent Brooks is brief.

"We are constantly learning and adapting on how to best lead and that's what we are talking about -- how to lead the soldiers, how to lead our families," the commander of US troops in Iraq's south says.

"We are 235 years old, and if we said things were (being done) late then we would never change."

A 350-page report the army published in July noted 13 percent of US soldiers suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder in 2008. In addition, suicide rates among troops were higher than the US national average that year, and prescriptions for anti-depressants had shot up five-fold between 2005 and 2008. Open 24 hours a day, the campus is designed to address "comprehensive soldier fitness" in five areas: physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and family.

"This is not a building for treatment," says Sergeant-Major Bryan Barren, who coordinates the project. "This is a fitness building -- we help soldiers to get stronger with any of the pillars they have broken down."

As a result, soldiers are given various remedies, ranging from diets to programmes designed to help them quit smoking, or access to a meditation room with stained glass windows filled with religious texts.

"There are a lot of people that do come for spiritual resiliency, because they just don't feel they get the exact spiritual guidance that they would have at home," the base's deputy chaplain Specialist Jered Cooper notes.

"We are here to be the friend, here to talk to them, whatever they need, just reaching out to them... whether it be just to hear their cries," the 23-year-old son of a Lutheran pastor says.

The base's resident psychiatrist Colonel Bollepalli Subbarao notes soldiers suffer from instances of shock, personal problems back home in the US, and even discomfort with Iraqis living on the base. Subbarao refuses to refer to those he speaks to as "patients", insisting they remain soldiers.

"We all have resiliency, but sometimes it needs to be strengthened in times of crisis," he says.

Back at Roever's speech, meanwhile, soldiers intently listen, awarding him the credibility of a man whose struggles have dwarfed some of their own. The Texan recalls how, having served in Vietnam for seven months, he came "face to face with the death angel" along a river near the Cambodian border in July 1969 when a white phospherous grenade accidentally exploded in his hand.

"Half my skin was blown off me or burned off me," he recounts. "I looked down and saw my heart beating. I looked down further and saw my face on my boots -- there is no way I'm supposed to be alive." Roever lost his nose, an eye, an ear and several fingers and had to undergo multiple surgeries.

"Stories like that really inspire me," says Christine, a 20-year-old specialist in the crowd.

"If he can get over such hardship, then I can get over having a bad day."

http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidAN...27%20in%20Iraq

Iraq and Kuwait are reaching a final solution on the oil fields between the two entangling

Revealed the Iraqi oil ministry for reaching the final solutions with the side on the Kuwait oil fields in common between them, indicating that the two sides will sign during the next few days, the final agreement on the mechanism of extraction and the share of each country.

The spokesman said ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told the Kurdish news agency (Rn) said that both Iraq and Kuwait in a bid to radical solutions and final on the mechanism of extracting oil from the fields of their common long after the discussions and studies, stressing that the art dealer for the extraction in the Iraqi Oil Ministry signed with the Kuwait after a few days in the presence of OPEC Convention on the Safety of oil extraction to ensure that each country's share of oil.

http://radionawa.com/Ar/NewsDetailN....527&LinkID=155

Arbitration damages hit DNO profits
Norwegian oil company DNO International said it would incur damages of $55-$75 million as a result of an arbitration case, raising its third-quarter loss by $45-$65 million.

The damages, which result from an arbitration case related "to third party interests" in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, may be higher as they were based on its own preliminary estimates, DNO said today.

"Assuming a final award in line with our preliminary calculations, we are able to fully cover the estimated range of damages from our cash reserves," Reuters quoted managing director Helge Eide as saying.

The damages should not have any effect on the company's investment plan which includes the drilling of at least five exploration wells and completion of a new development in Yemen, Eide said.

DNO, set to announce third-quarter results next month, reported a second-quarter operating profit of Nkr 99 million ($17.1 million).

Shares in the company fell 2% against a rising Oslo bourse after it announced it would incur arbitration damages.

http://www.upstreamonline.com/incomi...icle231739.ece

US firms say Iraqi regulation a challenge to trade

Iraq's regulatory environment remains a major challenge for international companies lookingto invest in the war-torn country, the heads of U.S. businesses visiting Iraq as part of a trade mission said on Tuesday. The 14 companies were part of a mission led by the U.S.Commerce Department to rebuild Iraq, whose economy has been battered by decades of war, sanctions and economic isolation. U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Francisco Sanchez, who led the mission, the first since the U.S. ended combat operations in August, said there was still a lot that needed to be done to improve Iraq's business environment.

"American businesses seeking opportunities here are less worried these days about physical security. They remain more concerned about corruption, a still-evolving regulatory environment and a relatively under developed infrastructure including transportation and telecommunications," Sanchezsaid.

"Difficulties continue in obtaining land, registering to do business, locating office space and obtaining visas and housing, but progress is definitely being made," he told a delegation of U.S. and Iraqi businessmen.

Iraq's gross domestic product has more than doubled in recent years to $112 billion, and the government has budgeted more than $80 billion for construction, highways, railways, telecommunications, security and defence and other infrastructure projects, the U.S. Commerce Department said. The investment-starved country needs foreign support in virtually every sector, but many international companies remain wary of security risks, and some like U.S.-based freight and logistics company Omnitrans said Iraqi legislation was an issue. Iraq is also without a government seven months after an inconclusive parliamentary election, and military leaders have said insurgents are trying to take advantage of the power vacuum.

STABILITY

"Besides the security situation, it's also all these rules and regulations that sometimes are not clear, sometimes made up out of the blue by some authorities," said Markus Raab, president and chief operating officer of Omnitrans Corporation Ltd.

"The situation at the port, for example, Umm Qasr, is definitely a challenge. It gets better every time we ship something big, but we're still always anxious if everything will work out fine, if there's stability and if the local authorities play along and help us."

Omnitrans has been operating in Iraq since 2008 and shipped cargo worth about $35 million into the country in 2009. Raab said the company was eyeing contracts in the oil and gas sector to assist U.S. businesses wanting to ship equipment over to Iraq.

The United States, which has spent some $700 billion on the Iraq war, is the country's third-largest trading partner after Syria and Turkey. It mainly buys oil from Iraq, while its leading exports include trucks, drilling and telecommunications equipment. Among the 14 companies making up the trade mission, those that already have projects in Iraq include Boeing, logistics company Sallyport, Newport and Wamar International. Newport, which is building Basra sports complex as well as financing small businesses in Iraq and assisting in the privatisation of government enterprises, said obtaining visas for Iraq was a problem.

"Getting visas for new businesses is a big issue ... that part still needs development," Rounsevelle Schaum, chairman and chief executive of Newport Global Group, Ltd, said, adding that security concerns remained paramount.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2...allenge-trade/

Signs of construction and reconstruction

Finally, were known and the Ministry of Construction and Housing on the direct responsibility secured adequate housing for all Iraqis and will take its natural place in this area after it launched a national policy for housing in the country.

Which currently browsing the principles of housing policy and the five principles of touching the power to go hard towards this humanitarian mission first.

Is noteworthy that the principles included in the implementation of two main pillars of the housing programs and are building the system of financing and lending for housing to help citizens buy or build housing units for the decent and the second pillar to support and encourage private sector companies specialized in the field of rigorous construction and reconstruction.

Useful to recall here the recommendations of the Economic Forum organized by the Iraqi National Business Council in coordination with government agencies on the adoption of Iraqi companies known and discreet with the technical capabilities and high net worth enough to enter into such a sensitive mission projects and strategy.

We would also like to note that «economic morning» had repeatedly called for the need to entrust the housing crisis to the point of sectoral and of the Ministry of Construction and Housing and the results were even late in the joy and frozen for the issuance of that because of its ministry of technical competence and a national area of competence.

The morning, as blessed this done great in the planning of a national policy for housing contribute to resolving the housing crisis stifling and undermining its other effects and reinforce the process of real development in the country you are applying and means to activate the role of the housing sector the engine of the workshops a number of economic tell because applaud this step great mention the need to pursue the strict implementation and non- Allowed, a waste of time by missing this golden opportunity.

We believe that the launch of the National Housing Policy in the country at this time which coincides with the date near the formation of a new government, but a real starting point toward building a bright new tomorrow, as well as the move would be the first initiative embarrassing to the government if it also successfully in their successful implementation.

In this vein, we hope the relevant ministries, other relevant services to the citizens say to be implemented and thereby laying the foundations of a successful government program before they receive government functions and we are taking her on a platter ready to contribute to the success of the economic process and the required development

http://www.alsabaah.com/paper.php?so...age&sid=109567

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seaview

'Iraq is the new Dubai' :ro_emote: :party: :party:

Financial firms who have successfully invested in Dubai should turn their attention to opportunities in Iraq, according to a businessman who has tasted success in both markets.

Shwan Ibrahim Taha, who worked as fund manager in Dubai before becoming chairman of an investment firm in Iraq, said that while security issues remain, investors prepared to pursue business in Iraq will find a business environment comparable to Dubai in the late 1990s.

"The mood shift I have seen in Iraq in the last six months indicates that some serious money is probably being prepared to go into Iraq," Taha told experts at a recent conference devoted to investment opportunities in Iraq.

"The difficulties in putting money into Dubai's market back in the late 1990s and early 2000s are not too different to Iraq [now]," he told delegates at the event in Bahrain.

The political uncertainty which remains in Iraq after March elections failed to produce a new government, and the remaining threat of deadly attacks against foreign firms, has not been enough to deter hedge funds from preparing to enter the country, according to Taha, chairman of the Baghdad-based Rabee Securities.

"There was nothing to dissuade these hedge funds and frontier funds from actually investing in Iraq," he said. "And the reason is they have seen it all."

Their interest has only grown stronger as Iraq's economic isolation saved it from the worst of the global financial crisis.

"The rewards have been unmentioned. We started getting a lot of attention when suddenly everyone noticed the whole global stock market had collapsed and there is one country that has not collapsed - it's Iraq.

So everybody started asking 'why, what happened?'

"[Admittedly] that's a sword with two edges. It means that Iraq is on another planet and is orbiting in its own way and it's not integrated."

But that will not always be the case, Taha believes, and Iraq has the potential to emulate the sudden economic development of neighbours like Dubai.

"We will actually see thriving capital markets in Iraq in the next five to ten years," he added.

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...onomy&id=31019

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The problems and the potential are known. The Big question is: Will the Dinar go up in value significantly and when?

Iraq government to restructure and privatize some 200 industrial companies

The chairman of Iraq’s National Investment Commission, Dr. Sami Al Araji, announced today that the government planned to initiate a privatization process that would involve restructuring up to 200 state-owned enterprises in the industrial sector over the next three to four years.

Speaking at the inaugural Iraqi-US Trade Mission held in Baghdad on 4 October, Iraq Dr. Sami said that the restructuring SOEs comprised some 250 plants, and that the aim was to set up public private partnerships or even the eventual partial or full privatization via the sale of equity stakes within five to seven years. He said that the process would move forward once the new Iraqi government had been formed, and that the government would have to appoint expert consultants to advise it on the best way to proceed.

The historic US Trade Mission to Baghdad was led by US Commerce Department Undersecretary for International Trade Francisco Sanchez and was attended by executives from Bell Helicopters, Boeing, General Electric and a number of smaller private US and Iraqi companies.

Sheik Sabah al-Khafaji, a tribal leader in the town of Iskandariyah, some 30 miles south of Baghdad, identified the State Company for Automotive Industries (SCAI), the State Company for Mechanical Implements (SCMI), and a number of former armaments companies as being among those companies on the government’s list of industrial restructuring and privatization targets. SCAI, which al-Khafaji used to manage, assembles truck and saloon cars, had contracts with Mercedez-Benz and General Motors prior to Iraq’s disastrous invasion of Kuwait in 1991 and now has 3,200 employees. SCMI has some 5,500 employees, including skilled engineers, and manufactures tractors, pumps, irrigation, implements and castings. The armaments companies include one called Hiteen Co., which has about 8,000 employees, and its facilities have largely been destroyed since the 2003 invasion. A large number of the SOE employees across Iraq have, in fact, been furloughed, collecting only a small portion of their salaries, typically 40%.

Restructuring and privatizing these companies will be a massive challenge for the Iraqi government. Many of the new generation of Iraqi entrepreneurs and investors believe that a restructuring of Iraq’s SOEs via softer methods, like public private partnerships, will never work unless they take the form of the aggressive UK stock market privatizations of the 1980s overseen by its-then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The aim of privatizing Iraqi SOEs via stock exchange listings would be music to the ears of Iraq Stock Exchange chief executive Taha A. Abdulsalam, who has headed the exchange since 2003. Abdulsalam has been a tireless advocate for shareholder value in this fledgling market, arguing that the Iraqi government needed to provide incentives such as tax breaks to get companies here to list on the exchange. But he thinks the biggest incentive for such businesses would be the market discipline that a listing ensures, by providing investors as well as the wider business community with greater transparency about their accounts and operations.

“They [companies] will not get [as much] business if they are not listed on the stock exchange,” Abdulsalam said.

Each and every owner of the many successful, privately-owned Iraqi businesses interviewed by this news service over the past week has dismissed the economic relevance of most SOEs as far as the country’s future is concerned. Many say that they should simply be closed down, leaving the better managed, fast-growing private companies to compete openly and transparently and not distorting the market by being supported by the state.

Mahmood Dakheel Muhammed, the general manager of the Ready Made Wear Mosul-based textile group, outlined the problems of transforming a state-owned enterprise into a successful private company. He said that Ready Made Wear produces textile for the medical industry but posts an annual net profit of USD 2m and has total staff of 2,400

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d0b9b9fe-d...b5df10621.html

Ex-Diplomat Who Advised Kurds Gets Millions in Oil Deal

A British court has awarded between $55 million and $75 million to Peter W. Galbraith, the former United States diplomat who advised the Kurds during the negotiations on Iraq’s Constitution, and a Yemeni investor for their stake in a widely criticized oil deal involving Iraq’s rich northern fields, the oil company ordered to pay the award said Wednesday.

Mr. Galbraith, who described himself as an unpaid adviser to the Kurds, helped the Kurds — rather than Iraq’s central government in Baghdad — gain nearly complete control over all new oil finds in the north.

The New York Times and the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv reported last year that during constitutional negotiations in 2005 that addressed, among other things, control of oil fields, Mr. Galbraith had been a paid adviser to the Norwegian oil company DNO, and that Mr. Galbraith had acted as an mediator between DNO and the Kurdish government in talks that won the company a potentially lucrative contract to work those northern fields.

The court decision on Wednesday stems from a stake in that deal claimed by Mr. Galbraith and the Yemeni investor, Shaher Abdulhak, according to DNO. A Norwegian business associate who worked with Mr. Galbraith in the original talks has said that he sold his interest in the deal to Mr. Abdulhak, accounting for the dual award.

Iraqi government officials and American analysts have asserted that Mr. Galbraith’s dual role during the constitutional negotiations implied a conflict of interest, since the provisions he championed could have increased the value of his own interests. But he has rejected such claims, saying that he was merely helping the Kurds press their long-stated policy goals. “So, while I may have had interests, I see no conflict,” Mr. Galbraith said last year.

DNO said that while the court did not formulate the award as a specific dollar value, the company was able to calculate its likely range. The award fell between the $12 million proposed by DNO and the $144 million proposed by the two claimants, the company said.

Tracey Brinson, a spokeswoman for Porcupine, a company that records in Delaware from 2009 show is registered to Mr. Galbraith, said, “While we do not know the size of the award, it is related to the value created for DNO’s shareholders and the people of Kurdistan.”

When asked whether DNO now had second thoughts about having hired Mr. Galbraith, given his dual roles at the time, a spokesman for the company, Tom Bratlie, said: “I see no point in regretting anything. What is important is that we are fully financially able to cover this and that we are able to put this thing behind us and to continue to develop the company.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/wo...galbraith.html

US trade official: American businesses should invest in Iraq – now

The United States is hoping that a share of Iraqi reconstruction projects will help revive the US economy in an ambitious goal of doubling American exports globally in the next five years.

But first, US companies will have to overcome their reticence and realize that despite ongoing security problems, corruption, and political paralysis, if they want to do business in Iraq, they can’t afford to wait to start, said a senior US official leading a trade delegation here.

“The opportunity to create partnerships and engage is not a year-and-a-half from now or two years from now, where perhaps you’ll see a continued reduction in attacks or violence. If you want to play a role here, you really have to be here now,” Francisco Sanchez, undersecretary of Commerce for international trade, told a group of reporters on Wednesday.

Mr. Sanchez says Iraq could figure prominently in meeting his mandate of doubling American exports – and creating new jobs.

“When I look at the infrastructure projects, the amount of money the Iraqi government is willing to invest – over $80 billion in the next several years – I see Iraq as a market where I can make a significant contribution for that in that goal,” Sanchez said.

Iraq’s biggest trading partners are neighboring Turkey and Iran, with the United States lagging far behind. Under US-led trade sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, American companies were barred from doing business here and along with other Western countries have had to try to rebuild a foothold. The US has spent tens of billions of dollars on Iraq reconstruction, including billions that can't be accounted for, according to US auditors. The US now, though, will be looking to Iraq as a trading partner rather than as an aid recipient.

Ongoing violence, which dramatically increases security costs, has posed significant obstacles to doing business. The lack of a new government more than seven months after Iraqis went to the polls has added another layer of uncertainty.

“The Chinese are here, European companies are here, the Turks are here, the French are very much here.… You need to come out,” said Sanchez, describing his message to American firms.

In a sign of its increased confidence in the ability to do business in Iraq, the official US export credit agency, the Export-Import Bank, has begun backing short and medium-term loans for Iraqi imports of American products.

“I’m not trying to sugar-coat this," Sanchez said, "but what I am trying to say is, the Iraqi government is sorting through some of these challenges as the physical security increasingly improves. You can’t wait for everything to be perfect."

Oil reserves up?

The delegation Sanchez is leading includes 14 American firms, most of them in engineering, industrial equipment, and security. They met with Iraqi business people in the heavily guarded Green Zone where the US Embassy is based.

On Monday, Honeywell International announced that it was expanding its business in Iraq and would open a Baghdad office to provide equipment to the oil and gas industry. Iraq last week announced it had dramatically increased its estimate for proven oil reserves, giving it the second-largest reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia.

Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said surveys by international oil companies and the discovery of new fields had raised the level of proven reserves by 25 percent, to 143.1 billion barrels.

While oil experts say Iraq’s reserves have likely been underestimated due to more than a decade-long halt in exploration, they cast doubt on the certainty of the government’s figures.

“Everyone agrees that Iraq’s declared reserves have been underestimated because the country was closed to international oil companies for a very long time and very little exploration was done,” says Ruba Hasari, an oil analyst and founder of the Iraq Oil Forum website.

“But at the same time, it does not give the full picture – seismic sureys and more appraisal work is needed for a more accurate figure,” she says, calling the announcement "premature."

Sanchez said the announcement of higher reserves was “worth looking at,” but would need more study.

“It’s encouraging news and we’d really want to understand what it really means,” he said.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middl...st-in-Iraq-now