Excellencies,

My Lords,

My fellow countrymen,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Distinguished guests.

 

I am particularly happy to see such an impressive gathering of important people, especially at such an important time, following Iraq’s general elections – another milestone on our democratic progression.

The support and necessity for Iraq to move forward with forming a new government and further stabilize the country, in addition to continuing the long road of rebuilding is becoming more and more urgent.  A lot of work lies ahead of us.  Our meetings yesterday and today are a significant contribution towards the progress.

We are lucky to have the backing of Lord Deighton, Lord Robertson and the Iraqi Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, HE Dr. Roj Nuri Shaweis, who took time in his busy schedule to come here and assure everyone of his whole hearted support for the great work of Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, the special envoy of His Excellency the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to the Republic of Iraq.  I also wish to commend the many competent hands that are working on this mammoth project. I want to particularly thank HE Simon Collis for his tireless work to bring the discussions here and in Iraq to fruition.  I also extend gratitude for HE the Iraqi Ambassador to Paris Ferid Yasin for his skills and his presence here in London to support this meeting.

Once again we have another meeting of Iraqi and British businessmen and experts.

May I just mention some possible areas of cooperation. This is not of course a comprehensive list of needs, just some examples to demonstrate the vast task we are facing.

For good reason, English language is becoming increasingly popular in Iraq.  However, we have no competent language school to train teachers on the skill of speaking English, and even less teachers who can take care of interpretation tasks in the ever increasing congresses and international meetings through-out Iraq.

Iraq was isolated from the outside world for a long time. We have to be introduced, through translation, to the tremendous number of scientific, literal and cultural books to get involved into the international discourse.

We need to constantly train our young ones on basic skills and prepare them to become specialists in so many fields of life, English language, engineering, administration, research, management, theoretical and applied sciences and vocational skills.  For that we would like to further develop Iraq’s relations with British universities, research institutes, banks and training centers.

Critically, we are aware that our health care system needs a serious overhaul if we want to meet the healthcare needs of our population.  Training doctors and building hospitals are one small part of that mammoth undertaking.   Building a trustworthy public health system requires revising and rethinking the whole system.  That means we need long standing partnerships for building the correct system and working together over the long term to sustain and develop it.  To echo Lord Deighton, that alone is a multi-billion enterprise.

Iraq is originally an agricultural society and as such it has to develop its agriculture industry in order to provide the population with the food it requires and hopefully also to supply the nearby countries which are not so rich in agricultural potential as Iraq.  However, making Iraq efficient and competitive in agricultural products requires very much work, organizing skills and very good relations.

Iraq is a historical country boasting a proud heritage.  Many prophets have chosen to live and die on our land.  The rich archeology of Iraq is also well sought after as a tourist attraction and for research purposes, too.  Imagine how many good roads, hotels, shops and related facilities are required in order to provide a comfortable infrastructure for people to visit these sights.

As HE Dr. Roj mentioned, Iraq must spend 620 billion dollars in the next decade and half on building infrastructure.

Of particular interest is the financial environment and its legal system in Iraq, and how they could be supportive of the important work of rebuilding our country.  No doubt, a legal frame must be created.  Clear, reliable and efficient regulations shall be put in place.  As Lord Deighton has said, Iraq – with all its goals and ambitions – cannot go very far as a cash economy.

So, I have to say that I am happy to witness a more intensive involvement of British business in Iraq.  I underline the establishment of the HSBC bank in Baghdad and Erbil and I am looking forward to the results of ongoing work to open the branch in Basra, too.

Here we have enough assignments to work on for decades.

Thank you for listening!