S.Korea-Iraq Joint Committee resumes operations after six years

A joint committee between South Korea and Iraq will be held again after a six-year hiatus.

The government plans to help Korean companies win large projects such as the Bismayah New City in Iraq.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on Tuesday that the 9th Korea-Iraq Joint Committee will be held in Seoul on June 21.

The Korea-Iraq Joint Committee, which is headed by the Korean minister of land and the Iraqi minister of trade, was held eight times from 1984 to 2017, but has not been held since 2017 due to the unrest in Iraq.

However, as Iraq entered a period of political stability last year with the inauguration of President Abdul Latif Rashid and the formation of a new cabinet, MOLIT Minister Won Hee-ryong visited Iraq in January and proposed resuming the joint committee.

With the resumption of the joint committee, MOLIT plans to sign memorandums of understanding with Iraq in various fields, including transportation, aviation and diplomacy.

In Iraq, Korean companies are seeing opportunities to participate in large-scale projects such as the reconstruction project, the Baghdad Light Rail Project and the Bismayah New City Project.

The Bismayah New City project is a large-scale project to build a new city with more than 100,000 housing units and social infrastructure near the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The cost of the project is about $10 billion..

Write to Oh-Sang Yoo at osyoo@hankyung.com