Iraq has awarded Turkey's Partner Teknik a contract to renovate a cement factory as part of plans to rehabilitate its dilapidated state industries after years of wars and sanctions, the government said on Monday. Adel Karim, a deputy minister of industry and minerals, said the factory in Samawa, 230 km (140 miles) south of Baghdad, was set up in the 1980s and designed to produce 2 million tonnes of cement annually. It currently only produces 20 percent of that.
The Turkish company, which has an Iraqi partner, needs to spend around $110 million to reach 90 percent of its designed capacity in 36 months, another official in the ministry said. Karim told Reuters, the factory "has been awarded and the signing of the contract with the investor will be within days."