Businessman Abdul-Aziz al-Babtain is pouring $58 million into a date farm project in southern Badia, some 150 km from the port city of Basra, officials said according to a Reuters report.
To date 5,000 trees have been planted and the goal is to have 100,000 trees in the next five to six years.
Iraq once produced three-quarters of the world’s output of dates but now accounts for five per cent after decades of conflict, despite being home to around 350 types of date tree.
A sign in Babtain’s office shows he began the farm in the 1980s. Owing to its proximity to the Kuwaiti border Iraq seized it in the 1990s and turned the area into a military zone. In an effort to repair relations, Iraq returned the farm to Babtain and granted his business tax exemptions.
“This will be the first private (date) investment project in Iraq,” said Ali Ghasseb, head of the Basra Investment Commission, Reuters reported, adding it has already created about 50 jobs area and will need up to 500 workers once the trees begin producing.
Babtain plans to set up a natural reserve for which ostriches and deer will be imported in the second step of the project, according to said Diyah Sharadeh, Babtain’s representative in Iraq.
Reuters added that ties between Kuwait and Iraq they have improved somewhat, with the Gulf state hosting in February a donor conference to rebuild Iraq. But Kuwaiti firms have been reluctant to return, demanding guarantees that their business will not be taken away again. There is only one other Kuwaiti investor in Basra, involved in a shopping mall, Ghasseb said.
But trade has picked up in recent years as foreign firms use Kuwait’s port to ship goods to Iraq due to its better security and around 200 vehicles cross the border at the Safwan post every day, an Iraqi officer said.
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