The Iraqi government is set to approve ambitious transport plans that will overhaul transportation systems throughout the country.
Under the plan, aviation, maritime and rail projects worth billions of dollars will be cleared by Iraq’s Planning Ministry in early 2009, according to the MEED business magazine.
Feasibility studies will get underway by the middle of 2009.
Iraq already has 110 airports, 76 of which have paved runways, 2,272 kilometers of railways and 44,900 kilometers of roads, most of which is paved, according to the World Fact Book. Six of Iraq’s airports are already undergoing costly overhauls.
An Italian company has been tasked with conducting studies for a port city on Iraq’s Gulf coast.
If it pans out, the Ras Al-Bisha port will link waterways at Shatt Al-‘Arab and Umm Qa’sr to benefit both trade and tourism.
There are plans to build a railway from Baghdad to the southern city Diwaniyya, a line that will eventually be linked to the Baghdad-Ba’sra track at a cost of close to a billion dollars, MEED reported.
A new airport is also being planned at a cost of $250 million, to be located south of Baghdad.
Baghdadi Mayor ‘Sabir Al-’Issawi said last week that a budget would be allocated next year for a feasibility study of a metro project in the capital that will link neighborhoods of different sectarian groups.
These projects will likely face funding difficulties due to the security situation in Iraq, as the private sector will be reluctant to invest in such ambitious developments.
Observers at The Media Line say any new transportation project could become a new target for extremists operating throughout the country.
The transportation plans aim to accommodate an anticipated rise in oil and gas production in Iraq.