BAGHDAD, Nov 5: Businessmen and trade officials from 48 countries including several from Western Europe were attending Baghdad’s annual trade fair on Monday, seen by organizers as helping to erode UN trade sanctions.

Iraq, whose oil reserves are the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia’s, was a booming international trade hub before invading Kuwait in 1990.

But UN trade sanctions imposed after the invasion of Kuwait restrict Iraq’s use of its oil revenues to buying food, medicine and other goods for humanitarian purposes under a so-called oil-for-food agreement.

“There are more than 5,000 foreign businessmen representing 1,650 companies and some 14 trade and industry ministers attending this year’s fair,” the director of the fair, Fawzi al- Dhahir, told Reuters.

“This great number of participants means that many world countries are in favour of an immediate end to the unjust embargo imposed on Iraq.”

Oil sales are expected to generate around $6 billion for Iraq in the current six-month phase of the oil-for-food agreement, opening the door wide for more trade.

Dhahir said $450 million worth of contracts had been signed during last year’s fair, in which some 45 countries and 1,500 companies took part. He expected the figure to rise this year.

Official trade delegations from France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Turkey, Russia, China, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Austria are all attending, with Finland and Denmark taking part for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait.

Dhahir said almost all Arab countries were taking part in except Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, although some private Saudi companies were present.

The United Arab Emirates has sent its economy minister, Sheikh Fahem bin Sultan al-Qassimi, for the first time since the Gulf War. On Friday he signed a preferential trade agreement with his Iraqi counterpart Mohammed Mehdi Saleh, a first with a Gulf Arab state since the Gulf War.

Bahrain and Libya are taking part for the first time since 1991.

Syria, whose relations with Baghdad were cut for 17 years until 1997 when trade contacts resumed, sent its minister of economy and foreign trade, Mohammed Imadi.

Jordan, Iraq’s biggest trade partner, sent Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Mohammad Batayneh, who said Baghdad had agreed to supply his country with 5.5 million tons of crude oil and petroleum products.

Amman has a special arrangement with Baghdad that is exempt from the UN sanctions. Jordan imports around 100,000 barrels per day of Iraqi crude in exchange for goods.

Ministers from Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Pakistan were also attending the fair.—Reuters