20 January 2020
Chinese companies will build more than eight million houses in Iraq as part of a $multi-billion oil-for-projects agreement signed between the two countries, an Iraq official was reported on Monday as saying.

Mohammed Al-Baldawi, a member of the Parliament's Planning Commission, said the units would be constructed in various parts of Iraq to tackle a festering housing crisis in the Arab country due to population growth and war damage.

"The agreement with China provides for the construction of houses in all governorates...these houses will exceed eight million and will be built mostly on a vertical basis to ensure the highest number of units in each area," Baldawi told the official Arabic language daily Alsabah.

Iraq, a key OPEC member, said this month it has started supplying China with 100,000 barrels per day of crude oil in exchange for projects executed by Chinese firms and that it is considering tripling the exports to 300,000 bpd at a later state.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com)

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