Iraq has awarded contracts for industrial projects worth nearly $9 billion as part of a post-war drive to diversify its oil-reliant economy, an official has said.

The projects over the past year include a fertilizers plant with an output capacity of one million tonnes per year and a sulfur plant with a capacity of one million tonnes per year, said Hammond Al-Lama, an adviser to Iraq’s Prime Minister for industrial affairs.

Lama, quoted by Aliqtisad News network on Tuesday, said Iraq has also recently announced 90 new investment opportunities in the non-oil industrial sector and that it has received a number of bids for these projects.

The projects were presented at an investment conference in the Southern oil hub of Basra and they covered mainly minerals, energy and petrochemicals, he added.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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