Russia Accounts For Half Iraqi Contracts For UN "oil-for-food" Programme

Russian companies account for more than a half of the contracts signed within the tenth stage of the UN "Oil-for-Food" programme, Abdel Razzak al-Hashimi, the chairman of the Iraqi Association of Peace, Friendship and Solidarity with Foreign Countries, was quoted as saying. He heads the Iraqi delegation to the Moscow session of the "Russia-Iraq. Economic cooperation." international round table. The Iraqi spokesman stated that Russian companies had been awarded 70% of all contracts signed by the Iraqi Oil Ministry, and 50% of those signed by the Iraqi Ministry for Industry and Mineral Resources. The total value of contracts signed with Russian companies over the first six months of the programme's tenth phase, has reached $420M just in the oil sector of the Iraqi economy, al-Hashimi said. "Iraq has huge oil reserves and the fact that these reserves are out of US reach guarantees the establishment of the multi-polar world in XXIst century," the Iraqi spokesman concluded.