Diversifying Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan’s continued over-reliance on oil wealth helps the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) dominate employment in the province by creating large numbers of unproductive city-based public sector jobs. Not diversifying away from oil thus leads to many short and long-term problems, but the irony is that Kurdistan — unlike some other economies in the Middle East — has a lot more going for it, including abundant water and agricultural resources, which remain largely unexploited. Hoping to tap these riches the KRG’s plan for agriculture was launched in 2009, and officials of the province have been receiving experts, funders and business delegations from Europe, America and elsewhere with an interest in Kurdistan’s agricultural potential. The first investment in the sector thus far has been by the United States-based private equity firm The Marshall Fund in the village of Harir, which put $6 million into the development of a tomato paste and