“High levels of corruption, in my mind, is the biggest obstacle to the development of more business in Iraq, and Iraq cannot flourish without the development of private businesses,” Baron Nicholson, the president of the Iraq Britain Business Council (IBBC), told Rudaw’s Mohammed Sheikh Fatih.
IBBC is a network of important global corporations, key Iraqi and British companies, and trade chambers that bring together business, trade, and investment for the benefit of Iraq and its members, according to their website.
While addressing the substantially negative effects that corruption presents to the Iraqi private business climate, Nicholson called on Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to “tackle the very great difficulties” it presents and stated that the IBBC is relying on his government to make much-needed changes.
Another significant challenge facing the Iraqi business environment is the urgent need to reform the legislation, according to Nicholson.
“If you look at the Iraqi legislation, you would find that a lot of it is leftover from the Saddam [Hussein] administration,” she said, adding that the judges in Iraq are “very good” but are “asked to rule on laws which are not of today, laws which are very old and antique” as Hussein was a dictator and “dictators have to own everything.”
Earlier in November, Sudani affirmed the Iraqi government’s intention to boost the neglected private sector and to end “wrong practices” that plague its progress, labeling the development of the sector as one of his key missions since taking office.
