Iraq plans to reach oil production capacity of 4.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2015 and has already surpassed 3 million bpd, Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain Al-Shahristani said on Tuesday.

The long-term plan is to raise production to 9 million bpd by 2020 and sustain that rate over 20 years, he said at a conference in London.

Iraq, meanwhile, has announced plans to establish a state-funded investment bank to help finance big infrastructure projects and steer money towards private sector companies which need it.

An underdeveloped, inefficient banking system has hindered efforts to mobilise funds for investment in Iraq. Bankers at a financial conference in Dubai on Monday described how some Iraqi corporate executives carried around tens of thousands of dollars in cash to settle transactions that are too inconvenient to do through the banking system.

"We need this (state-funded investment bank) to push forward the economy," Sami Al-Araji, chairman of the National Investment Commission, told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference. "Our existing commercial banks do not have the skills or experience."

The new institution, Investment and Development Bank of Iraq, would receive 1 percent of annual state budget allocations over seven years under a proposal that will be sent to parliament for approval, he said.

That arrangement, if it goes ahead, could eventually provide the new bank with over $10 billion to invest; this year's state budget is estimated at 174.6 trillion dinars ($150 billion). - Reuters