Iraq has finally decided to launch a much-delayed project to construct a 94-km ring road around the capital Baghdad to ease traffic congestion, an official has said.

Funds for the project, on the cards for nearly three decades, were approved in the 2023 state budget and it will be launched in 2024, said Nabil Al-Saffar, a spokesman for the Construction and Housing Ministry.

“Work on this important project will begin this year…the road is around 94 km long and 100 metres wide and is intended to end persistent traffic bottlenecks,” Saffar was quoted as saying by the official news agency INA on Thursday.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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