Tempers flare at iraqi trade fare

In yet another testament to the continuing violence ravaging parts of Iraq, for the second year in a row, the country’s main trade show, dubbed “Rebuild Iraq,” was forced to kick off April 4th in a foreign capital.
In one sense, however, the setting for the four-day conference and expo in nearby Amman could not have been more appropriate: Jordan and last year’s host Kuwait have become the undisputed gateways for a deluge of consumer and industrial goods currently flooding the Iraqi market.
Unfortunately, for many Iraqi producers, the import binge has come at precisely the moment when they are least able to compete, leading to fears and impassioned complaints by some that Iraq’s productive sector is in danger of collapsing altogether.
In a sign of the frustration, one conference participant, who identified himself as “ one of the 25,000 Iraqi industrialists who are out of work,” upbraided an (inexplicably) bemused William Lash, US Assistant Secretary of Commerce, for having been more concerned with implementing a near zero tariff policy than supporting the already fragile domestic industrial sector.
In separate interviews after the conference, both Lash and Dr. Mehdi Al-Hafedh, Minister of Planning in Iraq, defended the Iraqi government’s ultra laissez faire approach to the country’s fragile post-war economy.
“All of our colleagues,” said Lash, “Ambassador Bremmer and all of his team spoke with the private sector and the interim government… When you are trying to attract capital in a very challenging environment you need to be as open as possible. The long-term future for Iraq is for opening her markets and opening her doors to capital, technology, ideas and partnerships, not restricting it.”
For his part, Al-Hafedh was less diplomatic in his assessment of the industrialists’ complaints. “Their problem,” he said, “is to always depend on the state, which is over now. We are in need of goods from outside in order to satisfy the needs of the local market. [Our policies] might be reviewed in the future, but the current need is to encourage imports from outside.”]