Iran seeks bigger foothold in Iraqi market amid Ukraine crisis

Iranian exporters are trying to capture a bigger share of the market in neighboring Iraq amid disruption to imports from Ukraine because of a military conflict with Russia.

A senior Iranian businessman said on Monday that Iraq has been looking for alternative suppliers of grains, farming products and construction materials after the war in Ukraine caused a halt to imports from the Black Sea state.

Seyyed Hamid Hosseini, who sits on the managing board of the Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce, said that Iran is expected to significantly increase its exports of steel products, especially rebar, to Iraq now that the Arab country is facing disruption in supplies from Ukraine.

Hosseini said Iraq was heavily dependent on Ukraine for imports of grains, pasta, chicken and egg while a bulk of the country’s demand for steel rebar used to be supplied by Kuwaiti exporters working with Ukrainian manufacturers.

“Food and minerals accounted for a major part of Ukrainian exports to Iraq and they had a good market (in Iraq) mainly because of proper advertising campaigns,” he said.

Trade sources in Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan said on Monday that exports from Ukraine had completely stopped less than a week after Russia started a military campaign against the country.

Those sources said Iraq will start to take delivery of shipments from Iran and Turkey to replace imports of food, coal and detergents from Ukraine.

MG