Leading Iraqi businessmen have set up a holding company in Amman to undertake multi-million dollar investments in projects in their home country, a founder of the group said on Friday.
Abbas Shamara said a 13-strong board of directors would be elected when the Rafidain Projects Development Company's 134 founders meet on Saturday in Amman to launch the private shareholding firm, limited for the moment to Iraqi nationals.
"This is the first time in Iraq's modern history that Iraqis of all groups will be joining in setting up an investment holding company abroad that will undertake diversified projects in real estate, tourism and industry," Shamara told Reuters in an interview in Amman.
"Most Iraqi-owned firms have traditionally been either individual or family dominated concerns," said Shamara, whose own private firm manages electricity projects in Iraq.
The company's founders plan initially to raise up to $100 million in a diversified range of projects that tap funds of expatriate Iraqi businessmen running profitable concerns abroad but who also maintain extensive interests in their home country.
Many of its founders are influential Iraqis with investment portfolios ranging from the West to the Gulf who have moved to Jordan in recent years.
Once projects get under way, the founders will seek a listing on the Baghdad bourse and the Jordanian stock market, Shamara said. The firm envisages setting up an Iraqi-based subsidiary with the same shareholder base.
"In the initial phase the focus is on Jordan but once the security situation improves we will undertake projects in Iraq through a joint company," Shamara said.
The projects under study cover a diverse range of businesses from construction materials to pharmaceuticals and telecoms, Shamara said.
He said Iraqi entrepreneurs under former President Saddam Hussein's rule were eyed with suspicion by the ruling Baath party, hampering the growth of private business.
The founders represent some of Iraq's leading merchant families who survived under Hussein's rule by paying hefty taxes to regime loyalists and secretly transferring wealth abroad.
"It was not possible for a businessman to exceed certain limits and the authorities would find any reason to hold him back. At the end of the day, he had to pay hefty taxes to the regime figures," Shamara said.
The company was given a major push when founders earlier this year met the Jordanian monarch, King Abdullah, who promised tax incentives to the firm in a bid to woo Iraqi businesses ready to locate in Jordan.
Violence in post-war Iraq has seen Jordan thrive as a safe haven for thousands of Iraqi businessmen, many of whom have set up ventures to supply their country with products and services and even expand in the region.
"Because of the security situation you cannot work now in Iraq. Capital is coward and seeks security," Shamara said.
Another founder, Noaman Abdul Jabar al-Rawi, said the firm's ventures would complement activities in Iraq and use Jordan's advantage as a regional logistics and trading hub for Iraq.
Jordan has established itself as a gateway and supply route for Iraq during two war-scarred decades prior to the 2003 US-led invasion, during which Iraq was hit by crushing sanctions imposed by the United Nations.
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