IRAQ: Lafarge expects to improve the investment climate in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The head of the activities of France's Lafarge cement plant in Iraq, said the investment climate is improving in Iraq, but investors are awaiting approval of the laws of the national industry and consumer protection for further improvement in the investment environment., 

"Said Marcel Kuboz told Reuters in an interview:" I think that the investment environment and general environment activities business to take a trend towards improvement. "He added Kuboz by telephone from his position in Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq" is the investment law of 2006 is a good step forward. It guarantees the rights of basic industrial and pave the way through the fiscal and financial incentives. 

"There is a further step now be adopted Parliament to give effect to the law protect national industry. "The Lafarge's largest cement producer in the world of the early companies that offered to Iraq to renew the cement plants as part of the government's efforts to promote the industries that were damaged after years of war and international sanctions and neglect. and said Kuboz that the company increase its production capacity in Iraq and controls about 30 percent of the local cement market. invested Lafarge in three cement plants, "said Kuboz that the company has a production capacity of an annual six million tons. and hopes to increase its capacity by two million tonnes within three years when it is completed renovations factory in the city of Karbala, south of the country. and runs Lafarge also manufacturers in the region, the autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq, and employs about three thousand people less than five percent of them foreigners.