American Contractor 10/24/2011

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American Contractor 10/24/2011
The Iraqi Minister of Oil recently announced that Iraq had
increased their oil output to 2.9 million barrels a day. However,
that figure is exaggerated. Iraq only exported 2.2 million barrels
a day due to the limitations of the infrastructure. Iraq is hoping
to reach 3 million barrels a day in out put oil production by the
end of the month. This remains to be seen as going from 2.9 to 3
million barrels a day in output capacity with the current
limitations will be difficult. In any case, this is a milestone for
Iraq.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industrie...-oil-minister/


The Troops here in Iraq are definitely leaving at the end of the
year and with this goes the hundreds of millions of dollars the
troops or the US government brought to Iraq. This will have a
lasting effect on the Iraqi economy. This scenario could be short
lived if the Iraqi government can acquire foreign investments. The
Iraqi government will now have to find the funds to fill the void.

After numerous meetings and consulting with various entities the
consensus is that there will not be any movement with the Iraqi
Dinar currency. The Iraq currency reform report will not commence
this year as the Iraqi parliament will not schedule this for
discussions. This remains in the hands of the Council of
Ministries who have already reviewed the currency reform report
courtesy of Governor Sinan al-Shabibi. In addition, the Currency
Reform report has also been reviewed by a committee that has been
set up by the Iraqi Parliament. There will be no action taken this
year as more debates and discussions are continuing with the
government and private enterprise. This is the reason for the
continued articles in the media referencing the same facts over and
over. The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) continues to move at a snails
pace when it comes to removing the 25k notes from circulation and
at such time will be replacing those denominations with another
newer Iraqi currency. There are six new denominations being
considered and when the decision is finalized they will be printed.
Many claim this is premature as the Iraqi Parliament, Council of
Ministries and the legal department are still reviewing and
debating the Central Bank of Iraq Currency Reform report.

The Iraqi Parliament did accomplish one major goal and that is the
appointment of the new Ministry of Electricity, Abd Al-Karim Aftan.
The appointment of this new Minister casts doubt on Iyad Allawi who
is showing to be less relevant in the political process. Al-Karim
Aftan is from the al-Hal Party which is a small faction of the
Iraqi National Movement. The new Electricity Minister also has a
brother who is the Minister of Industry. You can count on both
brothers to be supportive of PM Maliki which will enforce his grip
of power. PM Maliki is also looking forward to completing his
second term and possibly a third.

Prime Minister Maliki does not want the U.S. Troops to remain past
the agreed deadline of 31 Dec. If he didn't voice this he would
lose all support from the same political groups that are keeping
him in his position as Prime Minister.

http://www.alsumarianews.com/ar/1/29...-details-.html


The Kuwaiti government is continuing with the construction of their
new port of Mubarak despite the Iraqi government politicians
opposition. The only Iraqi government officials who currently have
no problems with the new Kuwaiti port is Prime Minister Maliki and
the Ministry of foreign Affairs Zebari. But rumor has it that

Zebari has been accepting gifts from the Kuwaiti government. The
Kuwaiti government gave Zebari the gifts in exchange for his
influence in continuing with the Kuwait Port of Mubarak. This is
not the good economic partnership for both the Iraqi new Port and
the Kuwaiti Port of Mubarak that you're led to believe. The fact is
that it blocks the shipping lanes and makes navigation to the Iraqi
port very difficult.

A talk show host recently reported that Iran was a third world
country and that they have no money. I was astonished at this claim
because this host is supposedly an expert on Iraq, or so he claims.
In regards to Iran, the GDP of Iran is almost 900 billion dollars.
Now, compare this to Iraq which is barely 110 billion dollars.
Clearly, Iran is far from being broke. When you hear these
different reports from these various hosts on different topics
please fact check or verify them. If this reporter was so educated
on the topic of Iran then he would've known that Iran and Turkey
have already traded 15 billion dollars in the first 8 months of
2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran

http://tehrantimes.com/index.php/eco...illion-in-2011