Delegation to Baghdad explores construction sector opportunities

AMMAN — A Jordanian delegation visited Baghdad on Wednesday for a series of consultative meetings aimed at finding wider scopes of cooperation in the fields of construction and engineering.

On the sidelines of the visit, General Director of the Government Tenders Department Mahmoud Khulaifat discussed possible opportunities for Jordanian constructors with Jaber Abedhassani, undersecretary of Iraq’s ministry of construction and housing and public municipalities, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The delegation also met with Hanaa Ismail, Iraq’s director general of the ministry’s legal department, to discuss a system of classifying contracts for resolving disputes.

During the meeting, President of the Jordanian Construction Contractors Association (JCCA) Ahmad Yacoub expressed the association’s readiness to conduct courses to train Iraq’s public sector employees to launch and implement tenders.

The delegation convened with Sami Araj, the chairman of Iraq’s National Investment Commission, who underscored his country’s housing shortage, saying it was estimated at 3 million units.

Yacoub said Jordanian construction companies were ready to start working on housing projects in Iraq, underlining that the JCCA, in cooperation with the Federation of Arab Contractors, would open an office in Iraq to create work opportunities for Jordanian contractors as well as to remove obstacles hindering cooperation between Amman and Baghdad.