Story: This is the future home of Rixos Baghdad. A Qatari-funded luxury hotel located in the city’s heavily fortified Green Zone.
Iraq hopes to host Gulf Arab monarchs and other Middle East envoys attending the Arab League summit scheduled for next year in the hotel’s 470 luxury rooms and suites.
The Iraqi government is seeking more investment from Gulf Arab states.
After years of war and instability, Iraq is now benefiting from record oil revenues…
This is helping to stimulate demand for consumer goods from a rapidly growing population of at least 43 million people.
Currently, the country’s largest trading partners are China, Iran, and Türkiye.
But Gulf Arab states, which have a complicated relationship with Iraq, have recently pledged a series of investments as they seek to expand their soft power in a country where regional rival Iran has unparalleled influence.
In 2023, Saudi Arabia announced that it had set aside $3 billion for investment in Iraq through the Public Investment Fund…
It announced a $1 billion mixed-use project that would include offices, retail and more than 6,000 residential units.
Gulf states have also signaled increased interest in Iraq’s energy sector, a key sphere of influence for Iran, which supplies up to 40% of Iraq’s electricity.
More deals include oil production, carbon capture, and the development of power plants, natural gas fields, and solar farms.
Iraq has connected its power grid to Kuwait and plans to connect it to Saudi Arabia in the future.
While questions remain about how Iran will respond to Iraq’s growing presence in the region, the escalation in violence has highlighted the fragility of Iraq’s relative stability.
Attacks by Iranian-linked insurgents against US troops in Iraq have continued for more than four months.
Many investors are also concerned about widespread corruption and a repressive bureaucracy in Iraq, making everything from signing contracts to receiving compensation extremely difficult.
