THE TIMES OF INDIA 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2003

Iraq enters free market

REUTERS

DUBAI: US-controlled Iraq on Sunday unveiled sweeping reforms allowing foreign investors into all sectors except oil, ending 30 years of state economic control.

Iraqi finance minister Kamel al-Keylani said on Sunday the reforms would "significantly advance efforts to build a free and open market economy in Iraq", spur economic growth and speed Iraq's re-entry into the international community.

The list of reforms for liberalising foreign investment, the banking sector and taxes and tariffs read like a recipe devised by Washington for a capitalist Iraq.

"Iraq needs jobs, it needs to have growth," a senior US official involved in Iraq's reconstruction said. "This isn't just a proposal — this is the law, this is done. This was all signed yesterday," the US official said.

Keylani said the reforms would be implemented soon.

The surprisingly broad measures, which end an era of economic domination under Saddam and the socialist Baath Party, were aimed at improving global opinion before a donors' conference in Madrid next month.

 Washington's invasion of Iraq raised hackles in Europe and concern in Iraq and the Arab world that it sought control of Iraq's oil and resources.

 However, the reforms include 100 per cent foreign ownership in all sectors except natural resources, excluding current outside participation in Iraq's coveted oil reserves, the second-largest behind those of Saudi Arabia. 

 "The fact that they ban investment in oil resources is good because it sends the message that America was not only after Iraq's oil," an Arab finance minister said. 
 
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