Iraq Looking for New Mobile Phone Supplier

The official Iraqi News Agency has reported that the Chinese company, Huawei has walked away from a US$28 million contract it signed three years ago to provide Iraq with GSM network infrastructure. Mr. Hassan al-Ma'ini, the head of the Iraqi Post and Communications ministry said that the government is now looking for a new partner to provide the equipment for a 25,000 line network to cover the capital, Baghdad. A US$75 million contract with Alcatel for land-line network improvements appears to be going ahead as planned. There is no indication at the moment as to why Huawei walked away from the contract, which had been blocked by the USA for three years due to American fears that the technology would be used in Iraq's military installations."

Posted to the site on 10th September 2001