It’s always nice to start the year with some good news, and you’ll find plenty of it in this week’s newsletter.

For example, in recent days the French company Schneider Electric has won a $74-million order to build electricity sub-stations in the south of the country, the World Bank has announced that it will finance Lafarge (another French company) to the tune of $70 million to renovate its cement plant in Kerbala, and Elsewedy Electric has entered into a $169-million contract to build and operate a new 500-MW power plant in Diwaniya.

As always in Iraq, instability and other challenges continue to feature, and quite understandably these are the stories that make the headlines in the mainstream media, but here at Iraq Business News we remain committed to bringing you the full picture from a business perspective.

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