Investment Law and Investment Climate in Iraq

Abstract

Investments in Iraq depends on offering opportunities for domestic and foreign capital. The investment climate is the overall conditions and the circumstances in which the investment process takes place. The investment projects have been influenced by the current unstable political and security issues that the country goes through. These factors make the overall investment environment unpromising in future.  Economic constraints, limitations, the weak absorptive capacity of the Iraqi economy and the inability of Iraqi market to access the developed financial markets, and technological constraints of a large technological gap between Iraq and the rest of the world are making investment in Iraq challenging. On the other hand, the federal investment Law No. (13) of 2006, which aims to guarantee the rights and property of local and foreign investors alike, the legislators, through this law have sought to create jobs and eliminate unemployment, but that is not binding on the employment of local labor and this is what we find clear in the text of article (12 / first), which states that (the investor is entitled to employ and use non-Iraqi workers when there is shortage of qualified local labor). In regard to the Kurdistan Region as a federal province, Article (5) states that in the regions and governorates that are not organized in the territory of a region, the investment bodies possessing the independent personality and represented by the president or the person authorized.