Berlin - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is to meet
with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday in Berlin, is
expected to urge more German investment in his country, arguing that
Iraq is now safe for business.
A state-owned coach-assembly factory in the town of Iskandariyah,
about 30 kilometres south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, is an example
of those plants where the Iraq authorities would like to see German
skills and money at work.
Using dated machinery, only 450 people work now at a site that
used to employ nearly 3,500 in its heyday under the late president
Saddam Hussein.
Baghdad has suggested to German auto group Daimler that it could
be turning out gleaming Mercedes-Benz buses and trucks.
But Iskandariyah is an edgy place. In recent years, it was part of
a zone of kidnappings and assassinations known as the death triangle,
and German executives admit that they worry they could be still be
seized and held to ransom by criminals.
A Baghdad spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said, 'We're talking to
Siemens, Daimler and German firms involved in farming, oil and gas.'
On Thursday, Germany's economics minister, Michael Glos, said one
such company, Wintershall, had a 'big chance' of winning oil
exploration rights in Iraq. It is part of chemicals group BASF.
'I hope that it and other firms get more involved in extracting
crude oil in Iraq,' said Glos on his way back from Baghdad. He was
the first German cabinet minister to visit Iraq since the US invasion
of the country in 2003.
Asked if the time was ripe to invest in Iraq, Glos said, 'I think
so. I felt in Iraq that Prime Minister Maliki has won the trust of
the different ethnic groups. It seems to me that he has managed to
largely suppress the terrorists.'
That view may however meet scepticism from other officials in
Berlin. Germany fiercely criticized the invasion and has been
impatient with the US-backed Iraqi government.
Running advice from the German Foreign Ministry to travellers to
leave Iraq immediately and not to trust the security forces whose
capabilities are 'limited' and loyalties are 'uncertain' have annoyed
Iraqi politicians who insist the outlook is more positive.
Glos himself took no chances during his visit, wearing a bullet-
proof vest and staying in safe zones, though he later told the German
daily Die Welt in an interview, 'My impression is that the security
situation is improving.'
USA
Your Talkback on this Story