$2.6 billion deal between Iraq and DSME
Contract to build first phase of Faw port signed in Baghdad on Wednesday.
Deal worth $2.625 billion will give the Iraqi port of Faw the capacity to receive three million containers per year, reports Reuters. South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering and Construction will build the first phase of the planned commodities port, including five berths to unload ships and a yard for containers.
Daewoo will also conduct dredging and drilling works to create an access navigation channel and Farhan al-Fartousi, Iraq’s director-general at the General Company for Ports, told Reuters that construction work should be finished in around four years.
Until the port is completed, commodities ships will continue to rely upon the port of Umm Qasr, at the head of the strategically important Gulf waterway, in the south of the country. Faw will be deeper than Umm Qasr and able to accommodate the largest container ships.
