Iraq calls for Russian help on power sector rebuild

19 Aug, 2008 07:18 / Updated 16 years ago

Iraq plans to spend 10 billion dollars rebuilding its power sector, and it wants Russia to help. The country's electricity minister has invited Russian companies to renovate its power generating facilities.

Russian company Technopromexport is already working on the Harta power plant near Basra. The company won the tender in the nineties but work was suspended by war. Russia's OIL firms are also trying to renew contracts that they held before the war. But Karim Wahid  Hasan Alabbudi , Iraq’s electricity minister assured Russian companies that they would have an advantage over foreign companies in power sector tenders. “We are waiting for the companies to come to Iraq because this chance may not come again. We'd like to work with Russian companies because they have prior experience in working in Iraq. And they have the necessary capabilities to build new power plants and develop the existing ones.”