ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Overseas investments in the Kurdistan Region have topped $39 billion, and an investments law is being amended to make it more attractive to foreign investors, the head of the Kurdistan Investment Board said.

Saman Arab said that the board especially focuses on investments in industry, agriculture, tourism and housing.

"In the last two years, we have given the biggest number of permits to investment in the industry, agriculture and tourism sectors, followed by settlement, health, higher education, communication and transportation,” Arab said. “Now, investment has exceeded $39.2 billion.”

He said that the biggest industrial project included the iron factory in Sulaimani, which is the biggest of its kind in the Middle East, and was opened last week. Arab said that the largest tourism project under development is the Safeen Tourism City in Erbil.

“Many projects in agriculture also are going on and the government has given a special attention to this field by opening an agriculture bank and giving loans to farmers," he said.

According to statistics by the investment board, it has granted 680 investment permits, in which 20 percent have gone to foreign investors.

Arab said there were disagreements among some political parties over the investments law, which he said would be amended by parliament to make it friendlier to foreign investors. “In the new law more attention will be given to foreigners so that they would come to Kurdistan."

Currently, many giant oil companies have invested in Kurdistan, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total, Gazprom and others.

"The existence of these big companies will make Kurdistan’s status more effective politically and economically," noted Arab.

However, the investment union has a different estimate of the size of investments in Kurdistan.

According to the spokesman of the investment union, Yassin Mahmud, investments have been adversely affected by the delay in the formation of a new government in Kurdistan, and in approval for this year’s Iraqi budget, which still has not made it through parliament.

"Until now, permission granted to projects is estimated to be $2 billion, while last year at this time there were permits given to investment projects worth $7 billion,” said Mahmud.

He said $10 billion were ready for investment, but hampered by the lack of a new government and the budget problem with Baghdad.

He added that many projects in all three Kurdistan provinces had been halted, several of them sizeable, including the $2 billion industrial city and Sheraton Hotel in Sulaimani.

Arab believes that the budget delay and government formation have had an indirect impact on the projects. But he was confident that the government formation and the approval of the budget by the Iraqi parliament would resolve the issues.

Rudaw