ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani on Saturday announced that Iraq offers investment opportunities worth hundreds of billions of dollars, while touching on a number of projects in the works in the country.

During a speech at the Iraq Investment Forum (IIF), Sudani announced “investment opportunities worth $450 billion in various sectors” in the country.

The IIF, which "brings together senior business leaders, investors, and investment sector officials from numerous countries to explore exceptional investment opportunities in Iraq," according to its website, features 160 investment opportunities in diverse sectors across Iraq.

The premier emphasized “the government's intention to amend the Joint Stock Companies Law and the Holding Companies Law, adding provisions to support small and medium-sized enterprises and private funds, in addition to increasing the pace of digitizing government procedures to reduce bureaucracy, completing banking reforms, and raising Iraq's credit rating to reduce interest and insurance rates on projects established in Iraq,” read a statement from Sudani’s office.

Two weeks ago, Sudani oversaw the signing of a number of agreements worth over a billion dollars between the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and several Iraqi companies, with over $600 million set to be invested in Iraq’s Umm Qasr Port.

Iraq in recent years has begun making serious efforts to position itself as a trade hub, evident in the myriad large-scale projects to revamp its trade sector, such as the multi-billion-dollar Development Road Project, building the Grand Faw Port, and the investment into the Umm Qasr Port.

The Development Road is a massive, multi-billion-dollar project that entails the expansion of railways, roads, and ports, shortening travel time between Asia and Europe and linking the Grand Faw Port in southern Iraq to the Turkish border. The project is set to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and enhance Iraq’s geopolitical status.

“A special conference will be held to showcase the investment opportunities of the Development Road project, which will be the largest in the region,” Sudani said in his speech.

Iraq's state-owned Rafidain Bank in late August said that the bank has begun disbursing a new batch of the Riyada initiative loans, which aim to finance "small and medium-sized enterprises and empower young talent."

“We launched the ‘Riyada’ initiative,” Sudani said, noting that “more than 500 thousand young men and women participated ... producing (12) thousand new projects from loans and (20) thousand job opportunities.”

The premier also announced plans “to establish a permanent council of Arab and foreign investors, which will provide advice and information to serve the development of investment in Iraq,” adding that the council “will be linked to the Prime Minister.”