Iraq is planning to build 9 new industrial zones in various governorates within a drive to expand non-oil industries and diversify the economy, an official has said.

Four other industrial zones that have been stalled due to internal hostilities will be re-started with private investment, said Hazim Mohammed, technical director at the Public Authority for Industrial Cities at the Iraq Industry Ministry.

"We are waiting for a government decision to allocate land for nine new industrial cities...once we obtain the lands, we will embark on those projects immediately," Mohammed said, quoted by Aliqtisad News and other Iraqi publications.

He said the new zones would be built in the governorates of Aldiwaniyah in Centre-South Iraq, Muthanna in the South, Babylon, Karbala and Najaf in Central Iraq, Wasit in the East, Maysan in the Southeast, Saladin in the North, and Diyala in the East.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com)

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