Ninth Kurdistan Region cabinet completes over 400 strategic projects in first year

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region’s ninth cabinet announced this week that it has successfully implemented over 400 strategic projects across the four provinces under its autonomous jurisdiction since being inaugurated just over a year ago.

The undersecretary of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Ministry of Planning, Zagros Fattah, told Kurdistan 24 that the total cost of the projects, which included the construction of roads, dams, hospitals, power stations, and food processing plants, has so far amounted to 207 billion Iraqi dinars ($173 million).

The current regional cabinet, formed under the leadership of Prime Minister Masrour Barzani some 13 months ago, has made strengthening the region's infrastructure a top priority of its overall agenda.

Fattah added that 412 projects have been implemented in total, including 119 projects in Erbil province with a budget of 64 billion dinars, 223 in Sulaimani at a cost of 82 billion dinars, 35 in Duhok with which cost 52 billion dinars, and 35 in Halabja as well, but with no budget specified.

Sulaimani and its affiliated provincial administrative departments received roughly 40 percent of the projects, while the remainder of the percentage distributed. Erbil ranked second with 31 percent, Duhok came third with 25 percent, and then Halabja with just 4 percent.

A member of the regional parliament's Reconstruction and Investment Committee told Kurdistan 24 that such projects are crucial to the future of the Kurdistan Region and its citizenry. 

Prime Minister Barzani remarked in a recent television interview that investors will have opportunities to invest in one thousand projects in the region in the near future.

Editing by John J. Catherine