Bangladesh in the post-industrial world

Scion Industrial Engineering

Bangladesh’s economic performance over the last decade has garnered praise from the international community. Multilateral development agencies like the World Bank often cite Bangladesh as an exemplary case for economic development. From being termed a “basket case” by the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in early 1970s to achieving continuously increasing GDP growth rates for the last five years, the country has come a long way. Bypassing Pakistan and growing neck-to-neck with India in terms of economy has given the country renewed hope and confidence. However, at the onset of the third decade of the 21st century, the country faces several structural challenges potentially impeding its medium to long-term growth. These fault lines, if left unaddressed, can prove detrimental to the growth potential of the country.

Bangladesh’s growth has been spearheaded by the apparel sector, which accounts for 83 percent of total export and 12 percent of GDP, placing the country as the second largest player in the global apparel market, after China. Remittances have also played a pivotal role in stabilising Balance of Payments (BOP) conditions, generating USD 14.9 billion in terms of foreign currency inflow as of FY 2017-18. Although the tertiary sector has the maximum GDP contribution (52 percent), the primary sector—garnering only 18 percent of GDP—employs 47 percent of labour. Since the majority of workers in the agriculture sector are essentially underemployed, the government is keen on shifting the bulk of these unproductive workers from primary to secondary sector. To this end, the policymakers have adopted an industrialisation strategy aimed at maximising the benefits of the country’s demographic dividend. This has been a proven model for economic development and some of our Asian neighbours have directly benefitted from the manufacturing-led growth strategy.

Disruption of the classical growth model

Over the last 60 years, economic growth for emerging countries has been driven by the secondary sector. This has been the experience of the original Asian Tiger economies—Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. Asian tiger cubs comprising Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam have had similar experiences as well. The majority of the Tiger economies had started off manufacturing low-margin products utilising inexpensive labour, and then gradually shifting to the production of high-margin products. Some of the more successful economies like Japan and South Korea have eventually evolved into innovative and knowledge-driven economies, contributing to major innovations and launching global brands.

Developing economies like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia have been the main beneficiaries of this gradual shift in manufacturing. Since 1980s, South Korea and Taiwan have moved up the value chain, specialising in electronic components and consumer electronics manufacturing. As a result, the low-margin apparel industry, requiring less skilled workforce, gradually shifted to countries like Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Pakistan and China. China is following the same trend as South Korea, and as labour costs are rising in China, there has been another wave of shift in the manufacturing industry to cheaper destinations.

While many would expect Bangladesh to follow a similar trajectory of manufacturing-led growth like its Southeast Asian neighbours over the next decades, several technological shifts may prove inimical to future growth. In fact, the country’s growth might cascade downwards toward the negative if we fail to undertake precautionary actions.

A tectonic shift in the technological landscape

The 21st century has paved the way for automation due to the growing prowess of processors. With technology becoming more ubiquitous in all spheres of our lives and Internet connecting us all together in a common web, we have increasingly become more interdependent. Internet of Things, also known as IoT, is a network of interconnected smart devices that allow each device to interact (i.e. through sending or receiving data) with other devices on the network.

As IoT becomes more mainstream, more data would be accessible for making increasingly better decisions, eventually replicating and then surpassing human intelligence. Super computers like Watson have already surpassed human capabilities in certain areas, and with adequate supply of real-time data, many computers would have the ability to engage in machine learning to make better decisions.

The medium-term impact of the 4th industrial revolution would be in terms of loss of jobs. According to The Economist, 50 percent of jobs are vulnerable to automation. However, some industries would be more prone to automation, particularly in the sectors with repetitive jobs, where AI-powered robots would easily replace humans. The OECD released a list showing the likelihood of roles, within specific industries, becoming obsolete or automated.

Jobs in the apparel sector are at high risk of getting automated, which will significantly curtail the cost competitiveness of Bangladeshi apparel. Many investors will opt for automation in place of more troublesome human workers if the initial investment can be justified for automating operations. Many international apparel buyers would also prefer purchasing apparel either from their own country or from a country closer to their markets as labour costs become irrelevant. A number of apparel manufacturers have already set up fully automated factories armed with Sewbots, which can independently sew clothes based on specific instructions. Automated factories require 70-80 percent fewer workers compared to semi-automated factories. A human sewing line can produce up to 669 t-shirts in 8 hours, while a sewbot-based production line can produce 1,142 t-shirts during the same period. As more apparel factories take up sewbots, the average cost for manufacturing these robots will keep decreasing, making them more commercially viable. This will eventually lead to job losses for apparel workers due to automation and exodus of international investments to more developed markets.

Bangladesh’s remittance earnings may nosedive as basic jobs like food preparation, construction, cleaning, driving and agricultural labour have higher risk of getting automated. A significant portion of expatriate workers staying in Middle-East are engaged in the aforementioned jobs.

How to move ahead?

The upcoming challenges in the next decade can have a permanent damaging impact on the country’s economic fabric, particularly due to overdependence on apparel manufacturing. While there’s no easy answer to these impending challenges brought about by the 4th industrial revolution, the policymakers must eke out long-term strategic shifts for diversifying the economy. Education would play a critical role in preparing the workforce to adapt to the technological upheaval. As aptly stated by a renowned futurist, “the purpose of education in the 21st century would be to distinguish oneself from a machine.”

The workforce must develop skills that can’t be replicated easily by robots. These include fostering creativity, problem-solving ability, leadership and people management skills, critical thinking ability and adaptive learning. The nature of jobs will keep on changing and workers will need to unlearn and relearn new skills. Universities of the future would be keen on preparing students to excel at the art of acquiring new knowledge and learning novel skills.

Bangladesh must find ways to ride the service growth bandwagon, driven by the ICT sector. While traditional outsourcing services will eventually get automated, the local ICT sector must find a profitable niche in the knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) based market segment that should require creativity, originality and heavy human involvement. However, a large group of semi-skilled and un-skilled workers may become unemployable and would likely require a large-scale retraining initiative from the government for staying in tune with the market. The country’s future might not be cataclysmic, but the eventual technology-led economic turmoil might prove to be a major dampener to the country’s future growth, unless concerted attempts are undertaken by the government and relevant stakeholders to stem the tide of the 4th industrial revolution.

Source:https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/economics/news/bangladesh-the-post-industrial-world-1730026

RMG sector’s tipping point

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Offshoring of apparel manufacturing has been a blessing for many developing countries. The readymade garments (RMG) industry, employer of 4 million workers, mostly rural women, contributes more than 80 percent to Bangladesh’s export revenue. Low-cost labour has been the primary reason for western retailers to wait for months to get a shipment from offshore destinations. Once technology becomes a cheaper alternative to the least costly manufacturing labour, will apparel manufacturing complete the journey in returning home?

As countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam or Cambodia do not have the technological edge in apparel making, why should economics of automation suggest that they should remain the cheaper alternative? With advances in robotics and automation, reshoring is bound to happen. The challenge is to detect the tipping point so that both premature exit and prolonged stay could be avoided in minimising the loss.

It’s well understood that apparel making is an incredibly labour-intensive process. Starting from design, pattern-making, and cutting through sewing, there appears to be 14 major steps in turning fabrics into ready-made garments. Even in this age of automation, human intervention is quite necessary at every stage of production. But there has been continuous development of technological alternatives that has introduced automation at each step—reducing the need for labour. Automation in the form of computer-aided design and machine-assisted cutting is already in practice.

Among all the stages of apparel production, sewing is perceived to be notoriously difficult to automate.

Despite the success in cutting fabric, for instance, and sometimes sewing buttons or pockets, failure to automate the aligning of material correctly to the sewing head, feeding it through and constantly adjusting the fabric to prevent it slipping and buckling, means that there is no automated production line in which fabric goes in at the one end and finished garments, such as jeans and t-shirts, come out on the other. But recent developments indicate that this critical barrier has been overcome. A start-up in Georgia (US) has developed a highly calibrated machine vision innovation to watch and analyse fabric—succeeding in detecting distortions and robotically adjusting the fabric, while feeding to sewing head. Such automated sewing technology has successfully demonstrated that a t-shirt making plant working under the guidance of a single human handler, can produce as many shirts per hour as about 17 workers in a similar production line in Bangladesh or Cambodia. This development indicates that we are now not too far from a time when automation will make machine intensive production cheaper than labour.

The next question is, how much automation is enough to take apparel manufacturing to the tipping point of reshoring—taking back production from offshore destinations. Research suggests that within an off-shored manufacturing operation, an increase by one robot per 1,000 workers is associated with a 3.5 percent increase of reshoring activity. On average, a single robot usually takes the job of 6 workers. In apparel manufacturing, the delegation of roles from human to machine takes place in different forms, starting from the deployment of robots for handling packages to micro level automation in feeding fabrics to sewing head. Such diverse forms of automation often make it difficult to develop a prediction model based on robot density.

Another measure could be measuring the effect of automation on the reduction of labour requirement in foreseeing the tipping point of reshoring. Economics of the total cost of production suggests that reaching a completely human free state is not required to justify the relocation of plants from offshore locations. The example of Adidas relocating its manufacturing to high-wage countries such as US and Germany, employing 160 people as opposed to 1,000 workers in a comparable factory in Asian countries like Indonesia or Vietnam, indicates that once automation replaces workers up to a certain level, the tipping point of reshoring can be reached. Other factors such as cluster effects should also be taken into consideration in fine tuning such prediction model influencing business decisions.

Historically, as countries develop and wages rise, the apparel-making trade moves on to the next cheapest location: from western countries to developing ones like China and Bangladesh. Due to technological progression, instead of moving to the next cheapest labour destination, apparel manufacturing is about to return next door to the major retailers. As progress is being made in incorporating an increasing level of robotics and automation, labour cost advantage in apparel manufacturing in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has been continuously eroding. There is no doubt that smart machines will keep progressing in reducing low skilled labour requirement, consequentially reshoring apparel manufacturing. The challenge for existing offshore destinations is to predict such trend and remain in sync—as both premature exit and overstay are harmful.

Source:https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/economics/news/rmg-sectors-tipping-point-1731559

Bangladesh’s GDP growth puzzling: South Asian Network on Economic Modeling

Scion Industrial Engineering

South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM), a non-profit research organisation, today termed the recent economic growth of Bangladesh as “puzzling”, saying that the GDP growth mismatched with the data and various indicators of the economy.

Claiming that export and remittance are the primary drivers for economic growth, the SANEM said the economic growth rates in recent years do not match with the fluctuations in the export and remittance flow.

It said the government data showed surge in private consumption in the last two fiscal years — 2016-17 and 2017-18 – although export and remittance growth were in the lower state.

“Private consumption growth was not too high in the past years. Why did private consumption growth record such a sharp increase? Public consumption growth can be explained to some extent because the government is spending. Private consumption growth is a puzzle,” said SANEM Executive Director Selim Raihan at the BRAC Centre Inn in Dhaka.

SANEM, citing Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and other data, said private consumption growth was estimated at 11.41 per cent in fiscal year 2017-18 from 7.43 percent the previous year.

Private consumption growth was 3 percent in fiscal year 2015-16, it said.

“This is a big concern that we see the high private consumption growth despite low export and remittance growth. Second concern is that we see high manufacturing growth despite low export growth and slow private investment,” said Raihan, also professor of Economics at University of Dhaka.

SANEM said domestic demand can become a growth driver with sizeable improvement in the per capita income, but in that case overall growth rate may fall. Domestic demand cannot be a growth driver in a low-income country like Bangladesh, said Raihan.

The research organisation came up with the observation after two weeks after the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), private think tank, questioned the current year’s growth estimated of 8.13 percent, citing incoherency in various indicators of the economy.

SANEM also questioned high manufacturing growth rate at 13.4 percent in fiscal year 2017-18, although export growth was 5.81 percent in that year when the private investment growth was also slow.

The private research organisation said high manufacturing growth data does not match with poor business environment.

It mentioned Bangladesh’s falling rankings in World Bank’s Doing Business and Logistics Performance Index between 2016 and 2018.

“We don’t see any major improvement in business environment. Rather, we see deterioration in some areas. Then how could we explain manufacturing growth. All these led to a very puzzling scenario,” said Selim.

Source:https://www.thedailystar.net/business/bangladesh-gdp-growth-rate-puzzling-south-asian-network-on-economic-modeling-1741114

Is Bangladesh’s apparel sector ready for industry 4.0?

Bangladesh has achieved an economic miracle over the past three decades, but it cannot afford to rest on its laurels now. To develop a garment industry from scratch and become the world’s second largest exporter of apparel is an achievement we all can celebrate, of course. But some caution is in order as the nature of the challenge for Bangladesh is changing.

Up until this point, the focus has always been on growth and jobs and this has necessitated large and steadily increasing export volumes. We have been extremely successful with this policy, regularly achieving annual rates of economic growth of 6-7 percent. The Bangladeshi economy has been one of the world’s fastest growing economies in recent years, lauded by such institutions as the World Bank. The ready-made garment sector has been the main driver of this growth.

Does the RMG industry need to continue expanding? Of course, it does, and the RMG export target of USD 50 billion is one we must continue to aspire to. Economic growth goes hand in hand with job creation, and our achievements so far have helped to lift millions of people out of poverty.

However, moving forward, more and more thought will need to be put into how we grow. The world of manufacturing is changing, and quite rapidly too. Many believe we are entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This era is likely to be marked by continued breakthroughs in emerging technologies in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, the Internet of Things, fifth-generation wireless technologies (5G) and 3D printing.

This transition to wholly different new ways of working is both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. The temptation, when any new technology comes along, is to keep doing things the same way as before as investment in new technology is costly and takes time. However, apparel manufacturing businesses which don’t embrace these new ways of doing things risk losing ground to international competitors as we enter this brave new world.

The problem we face, and which we need to address, is that far too much of our apparel manufacturing base still looks similar to what it did several decades ago. Many apparel suppliers have struggled to embrace change. They continue to produce cheap, low-value, homogenous goods which are competing solely on price. That picture needs to change, otherwise Bangladesh will be left behind. Only by producing value-added goods will the suppliers be able to drive a harder bargain on price with their customers from the West.

The apparel manufacturing scene across the world is being changed by new technologies, with production becoming more global, automated, highly-skilled, infused with technology and more integrated with services. Our whole RMG sector—particularly Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)—face real challenges if they are to adapt rather than be left behind. Sewbot technology is in its relative infancy but it is improving at a rapid rate, and more technology players are entering this space.

One challenge that SMEs in Bangladesh’s apparel sector face is that they lack access to specialised services such as technology advisory services, R&D providers, skilled training providers, industrial service providers, specialist consultants and so on. Even if skilled workers and new technology are available, SMEs often lack organisational practices essential for using these inputs effectively.

Another question that we need to ask is whether our workers are ready for the technology revolution we are set to see. Automation is coming, whether we like it or not, but are our 4 million garment workers ready for it? Do they have expertise in coding? Of course, they don’t—not yet. Therefore, government-led training and upskilling initiatives are an absolute must moving forward. The RMG industry needs to upskill, from the shop floor through to management and board level. On the training and development front, the industry faces a huge undertaking.

More and more of our businesses need to explore production opportunities with added value. This is vital in order for our products to remain relevant in a world where people can wear a jacket that will check their temperature or take their heartbeat.

All of the above requires investment by apparel factories. Can they afford to do this? Many will mention the issue of pricing, suggesting that customers—brands—want digitisation but aren’t yet paying for it in terms of price.

One would go along with that, albeit with the caveat that prices paid by the brands are something which we, as manufacturers, have very little control over. For now, we need to focus on the things we can change—upskilling our workforce, investing in new technology. If we do that collectively, as an industry, pricing issues will look after themselves. The future is in our own hands.

Source:https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/economics/news/bangladeshs-apparel-sector-ready-industry-40-1742011

Iran “ready to Expand Gas, Power Trade with Iraq”

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President Hassan Rouhani has called for Iran and neighbouring Iraq to expand their gas and electricity dealings and boost bilateral trade to $20 billion, state TV reported, despite difficulties caused by US sanctions against Tehran.

“The plans to export electricity and gas and hopefully oil continue and we are ready to expand these contacts not only for the two countries but also for other countries in the region,” Rouhani said after a meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, in remarks carried by state television.

In March, the United States granted Iraq a 90-day waiver exempting it from sanctions to buy energy from Iran, the latest extension allowing Baghdad to keep purchasing electricity from its neighbour.

“We hope that our plans to expand trade volume to $20 billion will be realised within the news few months or years,” Rouhani said. Iranian media reports have put the current level of trade at about $12 billion.

Rouhani expressed hope that work on building a railway linking the two countries, would begin within the next few months.

The railway project was part of deals reached during Rouhani’s March visit to Baghdad, meant to underline that Tehran still plays a dominant role in Iraq despite US efforts to isolate Iran.

Iran and Iraq fought a devastating 1980-88 war but the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein prompted a long Sunni Islamist insurgency during which Iran’s regional sway rose at the expense of the United States.

Iraq on Saturday closed its Sheeb border crossing with Iran to travellers and trade until further notice, Iraqi security sources said, as flooding continues to submerge villages in southwestern Iran.

US President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran’s energy exports in November, citing its nuclear programme and meddling in the Middle East, but has granted waivers to several buyers to meet consumer energy needs.

Iraq relies heavily on Iranian gas to feed its power stations, importing roughly 1.5 billion standard cubic feet per day via pipelines in the south and east.

(Source: Middle East Monitor)

Source:http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2019/04/08/iran-ready-to-expand-gas-power-trade-with-iraq/

Iran, Iraq agree on Development of Joint Oilfields

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Iran and Iraq have reached an understanding on the joint development of the Naft Shahr and Khorramshahr oilfields, Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh has announced.

Speaking on Sunday, during a visit to the Energy Industries Engineering and Design (EIED), an affiliate to the Oil Industries’ Engineering and Construction (OIEC), the official said:

“There are massive potentialities for expanding Iran-Iraq cooperation in oil, gas, refining and petrochemicals grounds, and Iran is ready to offer its capabilities to the Iraqi oil industry.”

He added that Thamer al-Ghadhban, Iraqi minister of oil, during a visit to EIED, learned about the capacities of the company, and it was decided that a joint partnership be established between OIEC and a similar company in Iraq in order to develop joint capacity utilization.”

The official further said that Iran had a lot of potentialities in the oil, gas, refining and petrochemicals sectors, adding: “Given the lack of development in the petrochemicals and gas industries in Iraq, there is a bright perspective for cooperation between the two countries.”

He also said that Iran’s gas dues from Iraq stood at a billion dollars already.

Iran the only exporter of natural gas to neighboring Iraq, both members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Source:http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2019/04/10/iran-iraq-agree-on-development-of-joint-oilfields/

Iran, Iraq to Set Up 5 Joint Industrial Parks

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The Iranian president’s chief of staff said Tehran and Baghdad have agreed to establish five joint industrial parks, including one in Iran’s border province of Kurdistan.

Speaking at a meeting on economic development of Kurdistan in the city of Sanandaj on Saturday, Mahmoud Vaezi said Iran and Iraq have devised plans to set up five joint industrial parks.

One of them is scheduled to be built in the province of Kurdistan, he added.

Iran is the top exporter of goods to Iraq, Vaezi said, noting that Iraq and its Kurdistan Region provide a perfect opportunity for Iran to boost exports and deal with the cruel US sanctions.

During Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Iraq in March, the two countries signed five deals to promote cooperation in various fields.

The documents entail cooperation between Iran and Iraq concerning the Basra-Shalamcheh railroad project, visa facilitation for investors, cooperation in the health sector, and agreements between the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade of Iran and Ministry of Trade of Iraq, and another one in the field of oil between the petroleum ministries of the two countries.

Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Reza Rahmani has said that Tehran and Baghdad have agreed to reach the target of raising the value of annual trade exchange to $20 billion within two years.

SOurce:http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2019/04/15/iran-iraq-to-set-up-5-joint-industrial-parks/

New Investment at Umm Qasr Port

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Basra Multi-purpose Terminal (BMT), the largest multi-purpose port facility in Iraq, announces a major development in the Port of Umm Qasr.

Marking a significant expansion to their existing facilities, BMT will be increasing their total investment in Umm Qasr Port to over USD 200 million, aimed to further advance the port in the international trade and transport sector.

In addition to BMT’s current 4 berths and 650,000 m2 of terminal space in the port of Umm Qasr, the development entails a further construction of 3 new berths, as well as a new roro berth.

The quay wall that will be constructed at this facility will be based on a block wall construction, a technique that is unique to Iraq. It has a high seismic resistance and a life span of approximately 100 years, without any need for maintenance.

BMT has awarded the quay wall construction contract to the Turkish company Enka.

The design of this new facility was done in cooperation with the Dutch-based engineering consultancy Royal Haskoning DHV.

Once completed, BMT will offer 7 berths in the Port of Umm Qasr, with over 1 million square meters of terminal space. The new terminal will include an area especially designed for receiving heavy lifts cargoes, able to easily withstand cargoes of over 1.000 tons, while the quay wall will be able to receive vessels with a capacity of 14.000 TEUs.

In addition, BMT will furnish their new facility with all new equipment, benchmarking this project on an international scale. All together this investment will further strengthen the position of Iraq as international trade partner in the region.

Source:http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2018/06/06/new-investment-at-umm-qasr-port/

IBBC presents Iraq’s First Tech Conference

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The IBBC (Iraq Britain Business Council) is launching a Tech Conference in Baghdad on 29th and 30th April.

The Conference is showcasing leading Iraqi and International companies with the intention of building confidence for Tech initiatives within Iraq.

Iraq is at a pivotal point in its development as it revives and rebuilds its infrastructure, so now is an ideal time to review the opportunity that modernisation and tech could bring to the country. IBBC is keen to support modernisation and its benefits, and to share what we have learned in the UK.

With political leadership, a positive investment climate and the talent and interest among young people and the right educational skills, tech can take off in Iraq, in the way it has in the UK.

The conference aims to showcase the best tech companies in Iraq, to give confidence and support to those on the way up and to change perceptions about the country and encourage investment.

IBBC Marketing Consultant Ashley Goodall says:

“We believe that Technological applications can enable Iraq to become more productive and efficient and a drive for transparency, a mechanism for government payments, a means to interact with citizens, and a source of new employment opportunities for young people.”

Christophe Michels Managing Director of IBBC says:

“We are all excited about the prospect of holding this prestigious event for IBBC members, the Tech Community and the wider people of Iraq. We hope and expect it will have an impact on all audiences to encourage a more rapid uptake of technological expertise, skills, and investment in Iraq.”

Leading Iraqi companies include: Almaseer Insurance, Inspire Solutions, Zain Telecom, Careem, Switch, Media World, Zain Pay, National Bank of Iraq, KRG, Onyxes, Re:coded, Five One Labs, Khudairi Group, Iraq Tech ventures, Arabnet, Central Bank of Iraq and many international groups such as BP, PWC, EY Iraq, KPMG, Finastra and many more. The Governor of Central Bank of Iraq kindly confirmed his attendance.

IBBC want to provide a platform and focus for Tech in Iraq and give inspiration and confidence to those building a modern Iraq. Come and join the new wave and help modernise Iraq.

The IBBC Tech Conference is taking place in Baghdad, the Babylon Hotel on 30th April with an Entrepreneurs event on 29th April.

(Source: IBBC)

Source:http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2019/04/17/ibbc-presents-iraqs-first-tech-conference/

Iranian Exports to Iraq Hit Record High

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The total amount of the Iranian exports to neighboring Iraq during the last Persian calendar year (March 2018- March 2019) hit a record high, the data released by Iran’s Customs Office showed.

During the last Iranian year, the Islamic Republic exported $9 billion worth of products to Iraq, indicating a 36 percent increase comparted to a year earlier, setting a new record in the bilateral trade between the two countries, the Customs Office report said.

The data also showed that the total value of Iran’s non-oil exports over the 12-month period amounted to $44 billion, with petrochemicals accounting for $14 bln of the exports.

The top export destination of Iran was China, according to the report.

Iran and Iraq have stepped up efforts in recent years to develop their ties in different areas, including economy and trade.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Iraqi President Barham Salih in Tehran back in November, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the value of trade and economic interaction between Tehran and Baghdad stands at around $12 billion, adding that the two neighbors have the potential for a $20-billion trade target.

In February, the governors of the central banks of Iran and Iraq signed an agreement to develop a payment mechanism aimed at facilitating banking ties between the two neighboring countries.

(Source: Tasnim, under Creative Commons licence)

Source:http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2019/04/24/iranian-exports-to-iraq-hit-record-high/