Iraq is not inspiring flood of investments

BAGHDAD, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Despite efforts in Washington to invite business investments in Iraq, the country remains split on the notion and mired in infrastructure problems, reports say.

On one hand, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has publicly expressed his view that an Iraqi-American business conference scheduled for next month in Washington needs to be a success.

On the other hand, "we are not after shock therapy," Sami al-Araji, chairman of Iraq's national investment commission, told The New York Times in a story published Monday.

Many of the businesses are state-owned and some more overstaffed than they were when the late dictator Saddam Hussein was in charge, the Times said.

"We are after a gradual change from a centrally controlled economy to an open one," al-Araji said.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. has stressed the need for regulatory reforms to make investments safer. Iraq is also hobbled by poor roads and off-again, on-again electrical service, the Times said.

"Capital is cowardly. It is always looking for a safe place," said Mejul Mahdi Ali, president of an investment commission in Diyala, the province northeast of Baghdad.

Perhaps symbolizing the reluctance to seek foreign investment, commission was booted out of two Iraqi government offices, before finding an office equipped by a U.S. reconstruction unit, the Times said.