BAGHDAD —
China has gained a major foothold in oil-rich
Iraq, shaking up Western domination in fields from energy to construction, even
as some warn that infrastructure projects could leave Baghdad in debt.
اضافة اعلان
After decades of conflict, Iraq is “badly in need of
foreign investment, and specifically investment in energy sector
infrastructure”, said John Calabrese of the Middle East Institute in
Washington.
China, with its soaring energy needs, has stepped in
to fill that gap, and is expanding its presence in
Iraq under a 2019 “oil for
construction” deal.
Beijing has become one of the largest importers of
Iraqi crude, and in 2021 accounted for 44 percent of Iraq’s oil exports,
according to prime ministerial adviser Muzhar Saleh.
And state firm
PetroChina has partnered with
France’s TotalEnergies and Malaysia’s Petronas to exploit the Halfaya oilfield
in southern Iraq.
“China is just getting started,” Ambassador Cui Wei
told journalists in a recent videoconference.
But Beijing is interested in more than just Iraq’s
trade potential, Calabrese said.
Beyond the “obvious commercial incentives” are
China’s ambitions to “deeply entrench itself in a country and a region that the
West, and especially the US, has dominated,” he said.
Belt and Road
Iraq is among the many
partners in China’s vast “
Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative, which
Western leaders say risks saddling poorer countries with debt.
Baghdad is an “important cooperation partner” in the
project, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told AFP, adding that Beijing had
“actively participated in the reconstruction of Iraq’s economy”.
Between 2013 and this year, Iraq was “the third most
important” Belt and Road Initiative partner “for energy engagement”, according
to a paper by Christoph Nedopil of the Green Finance and Development Center at
Fudan University, Shanghai.
Under the 2019 “oil for construction” deal, building
projects in Iraq are funded by the sale of 100,000 barrels per day of Iraqi oil
to China.
One aspect of the agreement, inked while former
Iraqi premier Adel Abdel Mahdi visited Beijing, was a deal to build Iraqi
schools.
Two Chinese partners were tapped to carry out the
construction — PowerChina and Sinotech — with 8,000 education facilities to
eventually be built.
Work has also begun on an airport in the southern
city of Nasiriyah, built by the
China State Construction Engineering Corp.
Mandarin classes
Under such projects, Chinese
firms must work with local contractors that “provide manpower and raw
materials”, said Haider Majid, an Iraqi government spokesman.
But Yesar Al-Maleki, an analyst for the Middle East
Economic Survey, said there was “a big question mark” over how the Iraqi
contractors are selected.
“Many of these companies are rumored to be
politically connected, and this is how they got the contracts,” he told AFP.
Iraqi contractors could abuse the initiative for
“useless projects”, he said, warning that Iraq could end up in a “death trap”
of debt.
As China’s influence in Iraq grows, more and more
Iraqis have also been taking their business to China.
Banking on this, the Iraqi-Chinese Friendship
Association in Baghdad has begun offering classes in Mandarin.
“When I returned to Iraq from China, I found that a
lot of people wanted to learn the language,” said 25-year-old teacher Sajjad
Al-Kazzaz.
The majority of his students are businessmen, like
Laith Ahmed, who imports electronics from China.
Ahmed cited challenges communicating with Chinese
traders, “most of whom do not speak English”, but said that this hadn’t stood
in the way of business.
“Chinese products have flooded the Iraqi market,” Ahmed
said.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
