OPEC member Iraq will sign the elevated Baghdad Metro project with France's transport giant Alstom and Hyundai of South Korea in the next few days, an Iraqi official was quoted on Wednesday as saying.

Phase 1 of the project will cost around 3 trillion Iraqi dinars ($2.5 billion) and it involves the construction of 21-kilometre rail and 14 stations, Baghdad's governor Mohammed Al-Atta said, quoted by the official Iraqi daily Al-Sabah.

He said Iraq would fund 15 percent of the project's costs while the rest would be financed through an oil-for-project fund created by Iraq and China in 2019.

"The Baghdad Metro project will be executed in stages, the first of which will be launched soon as it was included in the 2020 budget," he said.

"We are now preparing the contracts for phase 1 and will shortly start negotiations with Alstom and Hyundai for signing the contract in the next few days."

In 2013, Alstom signed a 40-million-dollar agreement with Iraq for phase 1 of the Baghdad Metro project that has been on the cards for many years.

The Baghdad Metro, which is designed to ease traffic congestion in the capital, has been held up because of Iraq's cash shortages caused by internal hostilities and weak oil prices.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com)

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