Hundreds of European firms will take part in the Baghdad international trade fair opening on Thursday in the biggest turnout since a UN embargo was imposed on Iraq 11 years ago, organizers said Sunday October 28.
"The number of participants will exceed that in 2000," when 1,554 firms from 45 countries displayed their wares at the Baghdad fair, said Fawzi Hussein Dhaher, head of the Iraqi Fairs Association.
France will lead participants from the European Union, with 104 French firms due to exhibit their products at the fair, which will last 14 days starting the first of November instead of the usual 10 days in previous years, a diplomatic source here said.
Germany will be represented by some 100 firms, while Italian participants will number 40 and Spanish exhibitors 30, according to the same source. Two hundred Russian firms and 120 Turkish companies will also be participating in the fair, Iraqi and Turkish sources said. Egypt will be the biggest Arab participant, with 170 exhibitors, according to an Iraqi trade ministry spokesman cited by the weekly Al-Ittihad.
Iraq has been under UN sanctions since invading Kuwait in August 1990, but an "oil-for-food" arrangement with the United Nations allows it to sell oil under UN supervision to meet its people's humanitarian needs. — (AFP, Bagdad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
