In early October, an international project to renovate the country’s main highway, the highway connecting Baghdad and Basra, was completed in Iraq.

Part of the project, namely the reconstruction of a 112 km long section of road, was carried out by the Ukrainian group Altcom.

This project was funded by the World Bank. According to Farman Ramazan, head of Altcom’s Iraq branch, the final cost of the project was about $ 90 million.

Initially, 10 companies competed for the victory in the tender, including from Greece, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Ukraine. The winner was a Ukrainian company that began work in 2016.

The works were carried out for 4 years and were actually completed in 2020, but only last week the supervising company recommended to put the facility into operation.

In addition to the construction of the road itself and road structures, the contractor’s responsibilities included the creation of specific related infrastructure – checkpoints (which are a mandatory attribute in troubled Iraq), trading platforms along the roads.

The Ukrainian road construction company clarified that the work had to be carried out in the conditions of lockdown, government crisis and shutdown of the port, which temporarily made it impossible to import the necessary materials. Climatic conditions also made their adjustments: since Basra is one of the hottest places on the planet, in the summer work had to start at 4 am and end by 11-12 pm.

Initially, the company started fulfilling the order with Ukrainian staff, but by the end of the project, Ukrainian workers were almost completely replaced by the local population, leaving only the management from Ukraine.

(c)INDUSTRIAL PORTAL UKRAINE 2021