Word: iraqi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that is about to change. Intrepid investors will not have to brave car bombs, checkpoints or interminable traffic jams much longer. In the next two months, all investors - foreign and Iraqi - will be able to buy and sell in a matter of minutes, once the ISX's computers and servers are switched on. Servers, computers and electronic boards have arrived but are not yet operational. Three backup generators will make sure the market will be running nonstop, despite widespread electrical brownouts across the Iraqi capital...
...will be able to buy at 10 in the morning and sell at 10:05," says CEO Taha Abdul-Salam, a short man with a buzz cut and a pistol holster under his jacket. The ISX is a private venture regulated by the Iraqi Securities Commission. It opened in 2004 with 15 companies. "I hope to have thousands by the end of the year," says Taha. Realistically he expects maybe 20 more companies to sign...
Currently the ISX represents 94 companies and works with 49 licensed brokerages. The total trading volume for 2007 was $354 million, a 250% increase over 2006. The ISX has a helpful website, with regular updates; Taha says the ISX has received 17 billion Iraqi dinars, or $14 million, in the past five months from investors in the region. Banks are 80% of the volume, followed by services, manufacturing, hotels and agriculture...
...expects some growing pains and adjustments when the automated system comes online. "It is an Iraqi tradition to see everything - we will not have a physical [stock] certificate anymore," says Taha, who expects that market capitalization of the index will increase 25% to 50% in the next year...
...Business is no good - the security affects the Iraqi economy and there is no management in the Iraqi companies. They are all raising capital but not increasing production," says Mohammad Ismail, who comes to the ISX three times a week. He gives the example of an electronics company that manufactures television sets that might have been competitive in the 1980s but have long since gone out of fashion. "These companies in Iraq cannot compete with these goods coming from China because the costs are very low for them and for us very high," says Haitham N. Elias, a broker...