American Contractor

This article gives another perspective from a US State Dept. in reference to one of the ten PRT that are active in Iraq. There were suppose to be 20 PRT in Iraq however; having trouble finding the bodies to fill those positions. Instead of civilians they fill the positions with young US Army Civil Affairs soldiers not good since your pulling soldiers from pulling triggers to drinking tea with the local Sheiks. If security does not improve then not much of the infrastructure will be built.

Five years ago, provincial reconstruction teams were a daring new concept: combined civilian-military units that engaged in humanitarian affairs in remote locations. PRTs got rave reviews from the media and for good reason. They were established in the parts of Afghanistan where security was decent, if not great, and where development was nil, giving American amateurs the chance to win over the local population by building water wells and one-room schoolhouses from scratch.

Recently the State Department has been trumpeting PRTs as a strategy for getting Iraq on its feet. Unfortunately, Iraq is not Afghanistan. Not only is security non-existent, but Iraq’s infrastructure is far more complex than Afghanistan’s. Thus, Iraq needs real experts and a supple bureaucracy—both in the Green Zone and in Washington—to help it out of its decrepitude. But both of these are lacking.

Read the article here.

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When your Big Oil and sponsoring an event for a country you want to do business in; the chances of an RV less and less likely before Big Oil and the rest of the Paris Club members obtain what they wanted all along. Oil and energy contracts.

Chevron has confirmed its role as a sponsor of the forthcoming Iraq Oil, Gas, Petrochemical & Electricity Summit, which will take place on 28-30 May 2007.

The summit has been organised to bring together key Iraq Government decision makers in the energy sector and international operators seeking partnership opportunities in both the upstream and downstream industry.

The summit will welcome representation from the Iraqi Ministries of Oil, Industry & Minerals and Electricity, as well as the Iraq Energy Council, Investment Promotion Agency and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministries for Natural Resources, Industry and Electricity. It will also host many of the state companies operating under the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and senior representatives from the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (IRMO).

This historic landmark event will be the first of its kind for the most important sectors of the Iraqi economy.

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Iraq's oil pipelines are easy targets and hard to defend, though relatively easy to fix, according to an energy security analyst at the Eurasia Group.

"Pipelines are very easy to fix, it only takes a couple days to fix a bomb attack," said Greg Priddy, global energy analyst for the Washington-based business risk consulting firm. "But they are also very easy to hit and very hard to secure." UPI spoke to Priddy about the ongoing attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure. Last week a pipeline connecting the Rumailah oil field, Iraq's largest, to the southern infrastructure was attacked. Most of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of proven reserves are in the south, and all of its 1.6 million barrels per day of exports flow through the port in Basra.

Read the article here

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Big oil is still waiting on the Oil and Petroleum Law in Iraq to be voted on by Iraq's Parliament. I am thinking late May or early June when it will pass. Dutch Shell is looking to partner with a Turkish company.

The state-run Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) and a multinational oil company of Anglo Dutch origin have struck a deal to extract gas in northern Iraq, though the agreement still needs to be ratified by the central Iraqi government in Baghdad.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is expected to work in partnership with TPAO to build a pipeline from disputed city of Kirkuk to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, a UK daily said in its report published on Friday, emphasizing that the deal paves the way for Shell’s return to Iraq after 35 years.

Read the article here

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Iraq's Oil Ministry says northern pipeline attacks cost $165 million a day in potential revenue and wants the Kirkuk council to do more to prevent it.

It has been several months since the northern pipeline has been operational. If I was losing 165 million a day I think I would hire my own army and protect those fields.

read the article here

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This is just the beginning of the lawsuits to come in reference to the selling of Iraqi Dinar. The person violated Idaho Commodities Act which regulates foreign currency trading.

I wonder if he registered with the U.S. Treasury office? You know the department the one that does no investigation on anything regarding currency dealers. Meaning, my dog could register, just another tag line all Iraqi Dinar dealers use to persuade unsuspecting buyers to buy Iraqi Dinar.

I think if I was selling Iraqi Dinar outside of Iraq Which I am not and never have because I know it is illegal in the first place. All Iraqi Dinar sellers possibly could learn the hard way. Enjoy your profits and keep good records you just might need them to defend yourself in future litigation against the very same people you sold Iraqi Dinar too.

Those disclaimers all the Dinar sellers place on their web sites it just might not be enough to hold up in court, especially when you operating in opposition to the law in the first place. However, what do I know.

Read the article

Posted by American Contractor at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Foreign banks are waiting until security stabilizes in Iraq before entering or expanding their small presence in Iraq. The banking sector in Iraq is seriously underdeveloped and foreign investment has been limited to seven banks that have had no new investment since 2004.

As security and stability increases in all areas of Iraq the banking sector will develop their systems and start investing in their particular Iraqi bank.

Currently, private lending from the Iraqi Banking sector is approximately 4 percent of gross domestic product. As soon as the security increases then there will be a demand for credit and loaning the consumers with credit loans and with out the collateral of a real estate property to secure the loan as it currently stands in Iraq banking operations.

Iraqi private banks are unwilling to accept the risk of loaning credit to the average Iraqi with out securing the loan with a nice piece of property. Most Iraqi's do not own property so Iraqi banks extending credit to them is very small and limited.

The failure of the Iraqi banks currently is their failure to attract deposits and lend money to creditworthy firms, small and medium business.

The Central Bank of Iraq is showing the total assets of the private Iraqi banking have grown 254 percent over the last two years.

The Iraqi banking sector needs to provide banking loans to small and medium size business with no real estate property to use as collateral and use the new Iraq Company for Bank Guarantees to guarantees the bank loan. This is like the FDIC in the USA.

Central Bank of Iraq said last week with the expanded bank capitalization and higher liquidity in the last two years has increased deposits in the CBI and other Iraqi Banks. The Iraqi banks would rather leave their assets on deposit then increase lending to others. With interest rates at 20 percent on deposit with the Central Bank it is no wonder they rather place the banks funds in a safe place with little risk and drawing a nice interest rate.

The Iraqi Banks have very strict rules when granting credit and this has caused the high liquidity that averages 60 percent. The banks will have to begin to lend money to contribute more to the economic growth in Iraq.

Oh, I almost forgot no RV in the month of April.

Posted by American Contractor at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Several news articles reporting the ISX will be opening up to foreigners in September. This is true however; they will definitely be opening up to foreigners on June 1st.

The September date happens when you start a new business.

Read the article here.

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Iran bars Iraq PM from its air space

Read the Article here.

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In early March there was an article about the theft of 1.1 billion dollars from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in 2004-2005. The article mentioned one particular private Iraqi bank that had a hand in the theft of Iraq’s MoD funds. The private Iraqi Bank had cashed and transferred the funds to a bank abroad for a total of 497 million dollars.

Al-Warka Bank is the private Banking institution involved with the stealing of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense funds and along with the state run Iraqi Rafidain Bank.

This raises a lot of questions about Al-Warka Bank, if their involved with stealing funds from one of the Iraqi government ministries then what other questionable activities are they also involved in. It would make you wonder especially if you have any business dealings and or deposit accounts with Al-Warka Bank.

Agencies that could and possibly are looking into the theft of the MoD missing funds are Iraq Stock Commission (ISC), Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), Public Integrity Commission, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Finance, Government Accounting Office (GAO), Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

From the Article.

Documents obtained during an official Iraqi investigation and seen by The Sunday Times suggest otherwise.

An investigators’ audit of the ministry during Shaalan’s tenure found that $1.7 billion went into its account at the Rafidain Bank in Baghdad before vanishing into a Jordanian account.

Two cheques drawn on the Ministry of Defence account, one for $149m and the other for $348m — were among transfers totalling $1.126 billion to al-Warka, a small private bank in Baghdad. The money was then deposited at the Housing Bank in Amman.

Read the article here.

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On a road east of Kut, in southern Iraq, police found the bodies of two women, both teachers from Diyala, who were kidnapped during a recent bank robbery in Baquba, the police said. The thieves took about $11,500, the police said.

Read the NYT article here.

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KUWAIT - Kuwait’s central bank cut its repurchase rate by 12.5 basis points on Sunday after warning speculators against betting on a revaluation of the oil exporter’s dollar-pegged dinar currency.

The move, four days after the bank said it may act against currency speculators, takes the repo rate to 5.75 percent, making it cheaper for Kuwaiti banks to borrow money for one week from the central bank.

That would put more dinars on the market, easing upward pressure on the exchange rate. It also raises the risk of inflation, a factor that prompted Kuwait, which has a tenth of the world’s oil reserves, to revalue its currency last year.

‘It’s a catch-22 situation for Kuwait,’ said Steve Brice, regional head of research at Standard Chartered in Dubai, adding that concerns about inflation appeared to have prevented the central bank from making a bolder move.

Read the article here.

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You know the Iraqi government and the Central Bank of Iraq, Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Interior is watching how this is going to be played out.

Iraq's plans are developing slow but developing...

Kuwait City/Dubai: Kuwait's central bank said that it may take unspecified measures to curb speculation in its dinar, firing a warning shot as speculators buy the currency in the hope that the oil producer may revalue.

"Having huge inflows of capital is increasing the burden on us," Nabeel al-Mannae, deputy governor of the Kuwait central bank, said in a telephone interview with Reuters on Wednesday. "We will make sure they won't make money on our currency."

Investors had been buying dinar forwards after Kuwaiti officials said they may revalue the unit, which, like other Gulf Arab currencies, is pegged to the dollar.

The central bank may "take necessary measures so that there will be no benefit from such speculative behaviour", Mannae said in the earlier statement.

Unsatisfied

The bank is "unsatisfied with the increase in the volume of dinar purchases that do not have underlying commercial foundation and which are indicative of accumulation of speculative long dinar position", Mannae said in the statement.

Read the article here.

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