Nawah Port Management (NPM), a business unit of North America Western Asia Holdings, has won approval from the Iraqi government to import food cargo at its terminal at Basra port.

Operating the only modernized container terminal at the Port of Basra, NPM has weekly vessel sailings from the UAE calling upon its terminal located in downtown Basra along the Shatt Al Arab waterway.

Outfitted with modern reefer plug points and a full array of modern port equipment, NPM will begin to receive foodstuff almost immediately from Jebel Ali and Hamriyah Ports in Dubai.

Due to the port’s previous low level of activity resulting from the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the Iraq government did not include the Port of Basra in its earlier list of ports allowed to accept imported food products.

Today’s newest government directive changes all of that, allowing local merchants as well as international firms to import foodstuffs – from dry goods to perishable items – directly into Basra’s urban center.

“This is an important moment for Basra and Iraq writ large,” said Nicholas Kunesh, NPM’s president and CEO. “Given Iraq’s growing disposable income, particularly within the expanding middle class, demand is increasing to consume more types of food and at greater quantities. Therefore, the need for efficient, reliable movement of food into the country is becoming more and more paramount. Today’s announcement by the Iraq government clearly recognizes that necessity as well.”

“With the Port of Basra added to the list of approved Iraqi entry points for food, the challenges faced by the vast majority of us importing and selling everything from fruit juice to chicken will be greatly reduced,” said Hayder Abood Abdul Abaas, a leading local Basra merchant and owner of Iraqi Basra Company.

“We’ve already seen a difference in getting general and containerized cargo moved into Basra through the Port of Basra,” stated Abaas.

“The period of facing weeks and weeks of delay due to berthing queues, customs delays and other time-consuming dynamics at other ports and border crossings are over. And, for food products, that’s the difference between getting fresh or spoiled food to the marketplace,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service