2024-02-18T05:23:03+00:00
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/ Amer Abdul Jabbar, the former Iraqi Minister of Transport and current member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, announced on Sunday that he had submitted proposals to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani regarding the operation of the Grand Faw Port, the first phase of which is expected to open within the next two years.
Abdul-Jabbar directed these proposals to the Strategic Planning and Federal Service Committee, which in turn submitted them to Al-Sudani, as indicated in the documents published by the former Minister of Transport on his page on the “X-Twitter” website, which bear his signature.
The proposals stated, “Given the importance of the Grand Faw Port, the first phase of which (the five berths) is expected to open within the next two years, and to ensure the speed of unloading and loading containers to and from ships – it is unreasonable to operate with the same traditional equipment currently in use in Umm Qasr Port – so we propose choosing smart container terminals.”
Abdul Jabbar explained that, “In order to expedite the completion of the above-mentioned proposal, the government must provide sufficient funds to purchase and install this modern and advanced equipment, or conduct a competitive round to select one of the international companies in port management to contract with it under a joint operating system.”
The proposals addressed service matters, the selection of marine cadres and employees in the Iraqi General Ports Company to ensure the success of the port’s work once it is operational.
At the end of 2023, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani revealed that his government was negotiating with major international companies to manage the Grand Faw Port project in Basra Governorate, in the far south of Iraq.
At the end of 2022, Al-Sudani directed to accelerate the pace of work on all executive paragraphs of the Grand Faw Port, considering it a project “the size of Iraq and the aspirations of its people.”
The Grand Faw Port is an Iraqi port on the Faw Peninsula south of Basra Governorate, the far south of the country. Its cost is about 4.6 billion euros and the estimated capacity of the port is 99 million tons annually, making it one of the largest ports overlooking the Gulf and the tenth largest in the world. The foundation stone for this project was laid on April 5, 2010.
The issue of the Grand Faw Port and the delay in completing it has raised controversy, and representatives have accused successive governments of concluding deals with neighboring countries that have squandered the construction of the port in favor of the ports of those countries.
The project also witnessed some delays following the “suicide” of the technical director of the South Korean company Daewoo, which is implementing the Grand Faw Port project, for mysterious reasons.