it is supposed to can you adjust in real-time or make better use of a planned delegation to address something that you would not have otherwise been able to see. all of that will build capacity in iraq. we employ, as i said earlier 200 people. 95% of that workforce is iraqi. these are all highly specialized very technical positions. it will just keep rolling as these efforts expand. we have done over 1000 trainings we will continue to do trainings it is absolutely essential to the operations and success, frankly of what we are doing. on top of that, we mentioned earlier the central government's ability to pay for all of this. it is not unlimited.

to prevent chinese encroachment into the iraqi market but they are things that companies can do to adjust that while simultaneously building the capacity of the iraqi workforce. >> i'd like to turn to you and they know perhaps you aren't leading projects that may be use this venue to outline some of the programs you'd like to see

from foreign companies and from the iraqi government. what would you like to see to help meet the needs that you've identified and you talk about the steps being taken. what would you see is a project you'd like to see come on line in front of this great audience that you have got. >> i have a lot of things that may be just two. i think there's a role to play for city government for projects that meet the criteria to be collected as it relates to the local. we don't necessarily have that when you have a project that's

launched and sometimes technology needs to be involved in when you put the project in different pieces of various it's always a capacity like the gun work in the seal and all of these the provide the operation which is the key part of the project. and to go through the training capacity that was mentioned earlier. the project that was mentioned capturing the gas and running the gas plants or methane you will need to have the capacity and speak a lot about it. this is the first program and it deploys locally and that's where

the iraqi's could be trained to run the drones and this is not a one-off it's something you do over the years and that create capacity for the iraqi people. maybe one subject that i've not touched on is the carbon capture and storage. workforce to do the project itself and that could reduce gas emissions mostly coming from the gas and oil emissions so that could be another development area along -- beyond the ones we have mentioned today as a long-term plan. semi- thanks very much for that but for the audience with his vehement love sophie do have the last question you want to hit ask a p..org but first i would

like maybe you can say that you will sign on for project but you don't have the oath enough work to do in basra. seriously if you can look beyond that project, what is next? >> next is to stick to our engagement that we found in a much better space. i much align myself with julian's comments on insuring that our method of responsible operations are i would say widely used something. let's do the job first. >> a fair point. >> is a lot to do i promise you.

do we have comments from the audience? [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

>> on energy independence in iran. where do you think the parliaments ability to achieve energy. >> great question and we keep pointing out politics and geopolitics really affects the situation. before returning to our volunteer from the panel i would just add to that development projects and investment so can anyone take

that question? that's a big one for the domestic situation. >> i can offer some thoughts. katie thank you for the question. i'm glad you didn't ask it about the united states. i can't say was going to happen in this upcoming election and the up locations nor can we what's going to happen in iraq. my company, we work with stakeholders around the world and the vast majority are owned and operated by governments and governments change so we try to be nonpartisan and try not to pick favorites and work with whomever emerges. ultimately and hopefully with a view towards improving conditions on the ground and that's exactly what we have we have done in iraq and we have worked with different administrations to do that. so we do give this administration high marks for the priorities and for the

execution frankly and we talk about the challenges that there has been progress in the electric sector. 27000 gigawatts over the summer and we are finally seeing movement on capture and that's something that's been talked about since 2005, 2006, so we are seeing real movement now in the manifestation of projects. i think the hope ultimately is that will continue whether it's this administration or the next one. there'll be some continuity and focusing on the right priorities and they have been well defined so i have a hard time seeing the complete reversal of some of these key priorities going forward. their differences on emphasis of spending. hopefully all the priorities will remain and henry you mentioned corruption. it's an issue that manifests

itself all over the world. we have standards that we abide by and we have processes that we go through, very rigorous diligence processes both internally and external sources as well to make sure the partners we do work with our qualified and appalled the standards of the law and behave the way that we would want them to behave and when we can't find local partners we go internationally. i can't give you specific examples of anything in iraq. things go slowly there from time to time but they move and we are proud of what we have been able to accomplish with the partners we have been able to accomplish it with. >> thank you very much any comments on the effects of domestic politics on iraq's energy trajectory before we wrap up? >> your question, and i think

now than it being an intellectual issues the issue of viability because iran's supply of both natural gas and electric in iraq is below the needs of iraq and has not been sustainable or reliable especially in the summertime which iraq needs electricity. supplies have been cut off and a shortage of gas supply which is in fluctuations and reduces domestic gas and electricity production in iraq so continuing to diversify that supply and expanding the domestic resources they think that would be the way to go regardless of the administration and who will take the lead next in iraq is going to be important. some of the supply sources that were mentioned brands in saudi arabia is a country that's very responsible in terms of electric city of production and conscious in terms of low-carbon power generation. they have had a lot of

development and new ways of incorporating it into their power generation and also at the time it's affordable. one of the most affordable i would say clean less carbonized electricity in the region so those additional supply sources would help diversify the energy and energy security in the country. >> lesson i want to thank the great panelist for their great expertise and all their insight. in up i think it was really good to highlight the challenges from china, from iran domestically as well as the potential. we have a great example of lng and foreign direct involvement that is catalyzing the iraqi energy sector and again we have challenges that remain both and energy and geopolitics. again the panel gave a good

perspective of some optimism for a sustainable future for iraq so thank you very much and thanks for inviting me and thanks so much to be panelist and thank you for the questions. [applause] [inaudible conversations] initiatives led by -- and one statesman it's critical that international conversation about iraq moves from being solely focused on security and engage them to broker policy issues such as attracting investments,

improving governance and service deliveries and harnessing the geopolitical mint. how can i find better words to encapsulate the millions and millions today my son included. these individuals raised in work environments have witnessed the expiration of those in generations. for me it's the images of the conflict. it's an opportunity for us to gather here today to discuss the economy of iraq and signify that this region has a history of war. i don't want to go further with

this so we will start discussing this and it's a good opportunity. today's discussion will focus on iraq's journey to transcend its descendents on oil and a brace and more diversified economic future. we will dive deeper into this topic but first allow me to expand and introduced my extreme -- is deemed guess. victoria taylor in near eastern affairs at the state department. we are supposed to be joined by the adviser to the prime minister and we don't know if he will be live from iraq. he's very well-known in the region in iraq and my country at 11 and he's now a senior fellow at the policy center.

and out mod is a resident and senior fellow at the policy counsel. so first we have to start by opening with remarks from each of you. i would ask you to limit your comments to five minutes maximum. >> first thank you for having me and thank you for posting this today but i couldn't agree more that it's important for us to really think about how we have broaden and build the partnership with iraq and that's why from our side we are always talking about, and united states talking about how we build us three to 60-degree partnership and buy that what we really mean is trying to ensure that our relationship is not solely based on security in u. s. military presence and that is building the economic and energy elements of the partnership that we are building on cultural ties and

the ties between people and the relationship between any two countries is really a reliance upon those connections. in terms of looking at the economy i think we from the west side are also about how can we expand those economic and energy priorities and that means if you things. one diversification and modernization and on the energy side how both the less government in u. s. private-sector can support iraq's efforts to become energy independent and how would you develop renewable energy and how would you continue to develop other sectors for example agriculture and how the educational sector can be involved and i think another

element that i want to focus on is really the improvements on industrial. unlike some of our counterparts from other countries we can't just director as companies to invest in iraq. we need them to feel that there is an environment and an opportunity to make good business deals and there's still some work that needs to be done by the iraqi encourage reforms to the investment climate that would reduce the regulatory burden that would improve a contract and how we could do that with technical assistance e need to help with the iraqi government.

>> thank you very much and i'm very happy to be with you on this panel. let me say first i fully subscribe to that right now notably are the very crucial matters of a real attractive platform for that's above and beyond just more than likely it's part of the iraqi economy its resources

for me the story of iraq ago, three years ago ensured -- and iraq was one of the

countries. the situation in iraq when it comes to climate is different. water diversification for use. we are in a situation of deep crisis and it's not just iraq it's unfortunate large number of countries in the middle east and east. not the only story by the way. iraq needs also to diversify its economy in order to engage and find solutions to this looming crisis and the crisis, the water crisis. one could go on and on on the geopolitics of water in iraq and in terms of turkey and others.

be that as it may clearly the policies of the government are not where they should be in terms of natural resource preservation aside from the ocean. so to kind of recap governmental transparency fundamental diversification of the economy very important in order to make sure iraq can reap the benefits and notably its human capitol to these are things we need to look at. remember iraq has for years been known as one of the countries that have that are the most capable elites in that elite now is another generation and now we need to groom another generation

>> thank you so much and think you've are talking about human capitol. it's always been my task and we hope with a new generation. i will move now, i don't know if mr. hussein he is able to join us. can you ask? >> i can hear you. say okay. >> and you can hear me? okay. first of all thank you very much for the invitation and i would love to be with you guys. being on zoom makes it so much easier for all of us. i will cover a couple of things in one thing that might do to collect it mentioned in to give us an idea of where we are right now.

and to also address some of the issues we have seen in iraq in the last couple of years. we have construction spending on the scale that i know people would balk in 2004 and 2005. people will not believe it. so what is the cost of that and where is that coming from? first of all three main things that contribute to that. the first is we had it. if stability of the last five years. you mentioned something about history of war. for us it's intense conflict since the 1980s and we have been through pretty much almost every bad thing that country can go through with the exception of what's happening in other places. it's almost inconceivable so

it's provided a predictable thing for the private-sector to plan and that was before the current government came into office and so that's one thing. the second thing is ukraine is played a significant role in fulfilling government coffers and away. it allows the current government to benefit to embark on projects for the first one was 23 and the second one was 24 and our policies if you overlook the ins and world bank basically it exaggerates the good and also exaggerates the bad and finally the book contributes all about

the changes in november of 2022. what they have done is they have led a process that accelerated the industrial thinking of the country. we pretty much moved away, not moved away. beginning to move away from using the banking system which can transform the whole economy so to give everybody an idea of the numbers and what that means one of the things i do is i comanage an investment strategy and for people who don't know we do have us stock exchange. it was up 110% of this year we are up this year and that gives you an idea of it. here i will end with three large challenges.

that pretty much answers almost everything that people are talking about when it comes to diversification and not depending on oil. what we have done is we have pretty much perpetuated the whole policy that we have had since 2003 which basically are all the states in economy so basically what happens is it exaggerates and it perpetuates it. we spend more on current expenditures than we do on investment. we tend tend to doubled down especially after almost every near-death experience like of 2022. what at the end of the day our dependence on oil deepens her vulnerability and their size the question, not the question of if but when the challenge we have

is how do we change all of that. when it comes to traversing the economy without taking this into consideration cannot happen. ultimately i will end it with this and that is the government in this sense is the becoming dependent on oil. without it we need our whole economy and it's next to impossible to diversify so i'm not saying that we can't put the challenges are very real. that is how i will end it and i will leave it to. >> thank you so much. i don't think mr. hussein is ready quite yet. if anybody wants to ask a question please go to -- and submit your questions whether it's on line for or here in the audience speed.

there is one question everybody's asking. forget everything we are talking about here and the main question is -- abandoning iraq or not. >> i think the first thing i would say to that is something our president and secretary of state has said repeatedly stable secure sovereign prosperous iraq is in u. s. national interest. we think it's in iraq's national interests as well and that's a shared goal. well of course i think people are aware of my recent announcement regarding the transition of the coalition presence in iraq again our relationship is about a lot more than a coalition. our relationship is about the people-to-people ties into ties

between our companies, the economy, energy and an ongoing security partnership. our engagement with the iraqi government across-the-board is intended to not only redeemed the partnership but to strengthen it. >> you talk about something called the 360 and you want american companies to go there. but it's not up to you to push the american companies. what can the iraqi government offer to these companies and what is your advice? >> i think what we can do as a government and what we try to do is encourage u. s. companies