Iraq's parliamentary Services and Construction Commission has asked the government to offer the Baghdad Metro project to investors to ensure sufficient funds given the country's severe cash shortage, the official press reported on Tuesday.

The Baghdad Metro and other "strategic projects" should be turned over to investors instead of contractors, the Commission's Chairman Waleed Al-Sahlani told the government newspaper Al-Sabah.

He said the Baghdad Metro project may cost $4-5 billion and this should "prompt the government to offer it to investors instead of Alstom of France."

"There is a growing global trend for investment...we should work to lure in foreign companies and offer them such large projects as the Metro as an investment...awarding it this way raises many questions and puts heavy burdens on the budget," he said.

In late 2020, officials said the much-delayed Metro project would be submitted to parliament for approval before it is awarded to the French transport giant Alstom.

Alstom had signed a 40-million-dollar agreement with Iraq in 2013 for design studies for the project, which is intended to ease traffic congestion in the capital.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com)

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