Egypt’s Energy Petroleum Construction and Iraq’s Atlalat al-Furat won contracts valued at $95 million to build 1,500 homes south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, said Alaa Ibraheem, the president of the provincial investment commission.
Energy Petroleum will build 684 homes within three years for $44 million near the city of Hilla in Babel province, Ibraheem said in a telephone interview today. Atlalat al-Furat will build another 816 homes south of Hilla, he said. Babel province needs more than 100,000 housing units, Ibraheem said.
Iraq, which holds the world’s fifth-largest crude-oil reserves, is seeking foreign investment to help rebuild an economy and infrastructure damaged by years of conflict, sanctions and lack of investment. In March 2010, the government approved a plan to build 1 million homes by 2014 for low- and mid-income families to reduce the country’s housing shortage.