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The skyline of the city is shown August 5, 2002 in Baghdad, Iraq. The nation celebrated the 14th anniversary of the end of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran War August 8, 2002 with a wreath laying ceremony and a military parade. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein used the occasion to announce that he is not afraid of U.S. military threats. (Photo by Salah Malkawi/Getty Images) Image used for illustrative purpose
Iraq has approved a project to build five new residential cities comprising nearly 240,000 houses as part of a post-war strategy to tackle a housing crisis, an Iraq official has said.
The five projects in various parts of the Arab country will be offered within the next few weeks to developers as an investment and they will be allowed to own 10-25 percent of the cities, said Muthanna Al-Ghanimi, a spokesman for the National Investment Commission.
In comments published by Aliqtisad News and other Iraqi publications on Wednesday, Ghanimi said one city is based in the capital Baghdad and will comprise 29,000 houses while another one in the central Karbala city would include 46,000 houses.
Another project in Al-Fallujah city in the Western Alanbar Governorate comprises 91,000 units while two other planned towns in the Northern Nineveh Governorate and the Central Bablyon province would include more than 46,000 and 25,000 houses respectively.
“All these projects will be offered to developers on an investment basis in the next few weeks…applications for the projects will continue for one month and only serious and experienced developers will be awarded contracts,” Ghanimi said without specifying costs of the new cities.
(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)
