Alba to ship products worth $6m to Iraq soon

Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) is to send large shipments of aluminium products worth $6 million to Iraq within the next few days, a statement said yesterday.

Khalid Noor, head of Alba"s marketing, said the company had signed an agreement with an European company to export aluminium to Iraq as part of the UN's 'Oil for Food' programme.
It will be the first such transaction since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

He said the company had already sent a number of shipments and the largest weighing more than 3,000 metric tonnes would be sent in the next few days.

Aluminium shipments to Iraq amounted to 0.78 per cent of Alba's total production of 500,000 metric tonnes per year.

The exports will be handled by the United Arab Maritime Co. through Al Nasiriya Port.

The Oil for Food programme allows Iraq to import food and medicine and other UN-permitted products that are needed to rehabilitate the country's infrastructure, especially in the health, electricity and oil sectors.