AMMAN, July 3 (VOI) - Iraqi business men called on Japanese companies to invest in Iraq, while Japanese businessmen expressed readiness to come to Iraq if their foreign ministry allowed them to enter the country.
"Reconstructing our country tops our priorities and our participation in the Japanese-Iraqi forum aims at meeting Japanese businessmen," Engineer Aqeel Salman, the representative of al-Raha company for construction, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq (VOI).
He called on the Iraqi government to intensify organizing such forums between Iraqi businessmen and their counterparts from all over the world.
Iraqi-Japanese forum opened yesterday in the Jordanian capital Amman with the participation of over 200 businessmen and government officials from Iraq and Japan.
"The most important thing for us as Iraqi businessmen is to make partnerships with the Japanese side and the Iraqi government has to consider this seriously.
For his part, Walied Khaled, the executive director of the Taha group, expressed happiness over the return of the Japanese companies into Iraq, mainly in Kurdistan region.
"The Japanese loans and grants is a very encouraging thing to develop the economic movement in Iraq," he underlined.
"The main reason the Japanese companies left Iraq was the Iraqi-Iranian war in 1980 and the Gulf war in 1990," he explained.
Meanwhile, A Japanese businessman voiced happiness for his participation in the forum and told the VOI "i wish to enter the Iraqi market long time ago but security conditions kept me away."
"I was working in Iraq until our office was closed after the second gulf war 1991 and i took part in the forum to gather information and be acquainted with the developments in the country," he added.
© Aswat Aliraq 2008
