Even as visiting Iraqi oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani talked about a new law that would require all deals under the Saddam regime to be scrutinised closely, a flying visit by industrialist Mukesh Ambani to Delhi to spend just 10 minutes with him indicates the strategic importance being attached to his visit by Indian businessmen.

Ambani’s Reliance Industries, part of the consortium led by ONGC Videsh, almost won an oil asset in Iraq. It had been seeking permission to begin work, but now will have to bid for it, in keeping with the new law.

Engineer Al-Sabah Shammery, chairman of the SAPCO group, one of Iraq’s largest businesses, believes Ambani is one of the few who seem to have grasped the message from the visiting Iraqis: “Iraq will be a global workshop for the next ten years at least. India must participate in Iraq’s rebuilding efforts today, not tomorrow . . . because once Iraq is open, many bigger companies will enter and then our Indian friends could be sitting around, waiting in the queue.”

India’s relations with Iraq date back ages, and Iraqis want India to be “a friend indeed” for its “friend in need”, as Shammery put it.

“It’s the right time to move to Iraq in order to secure a foothold in the emerging Iraqi market. We are now a free market with no restrictions on money transfers. The Iraqi dinar has been strengthening every day in the past three years. Standards of living have gone up with salaries,” he says.

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