Another IBBC Spring Conference has come to an end for another year, with the event wrapping up with a half-day conference at Vintners’ Hall. Iraq’s Deputy Minister of Housing and Construction, H.E. Istabraq Al Shouk, served as the keynote speaker at the conference, addressing the delegates during the event’s welcome addresses and outlining the immense requirements and business opportunities which lie within his ministry.

Deputy Minister Al Shouk was warmly welcomed by conference chairman Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, IBBC’s Executive Chairman and the PM’s Trade Envoy to Iraq, who opened the conference. After welcoming the other eminent speakers and guests in the audience, Baroness Nicholson took the opportunity to announce two education and cultural initiatives that IBBC has recently launched or plans to launch soon.

One of the initiatives is a mentoring scheme that is currently being piloted at Newcastle University. The programme allows postgraduate students from Iraq studying in the UK to gain practical experience in the corporate commercial sector before they return to Iraq. The second is an Arabic Poetry Prize, which will be launched once sponsorship is found.

Following the welcome addresses, Control Risks’ Middle East Director Toby Chinn delivered a speech in Arabic on Iraq from the UK’s commercial point of view, which was well-received by the Iraqi audience.

The first session of the day was chaired by Rasmi Al-Jabri, Director General of Basrah Engineering Group and IBBC’s Executive Board Member. Speakers on his panel included former Deputy Minister of Oil, Ahmed Al-Shamma, who spoke about downstream oil and gas industries, oil refining and gas processing, and the former Director General of Iraq’s State Company for Oil Projects, Tariq Al-Obeidi. Mr Al-Obeidi delivered a presentation on tendering and clients in Hydrocarbon processing industries.

The final session of the day was chaired by IBBC’s Richard Cotton, with the panel consisting of representatives from the Chambers of Commerce from three different governorates in Iraq. Chairman of Najaf Chamber of Commerce Zuhair Sherba spoke about the role of local companies in foreign investment in Iraq; Board Member of Basrah Chamber of Commerce Imad Ghalib Hasan Assfoor delivered a presentation on the development and improvement of the private sector in Iraq; Babylon Chamber of Commerce’s Chairman Sadiq Hashim Al-Maamori closed the final session with a speech on agriculture as an alternative source of national income other than oil.

More than eighty business people from Iraq flew to London for the conference, which was sponsored by Shell, Restrata and Al Iraqia for Money Transfer Company.