An Iraqi official said on Monday that a Turkish company specializing in the dairy industry had obtained an investment contract for the Abu Ghraib dairy plant, the largest dairy plant in Iraq.
The director general of the General Company for Food Products of the Iraqi Ministry of Commerce, Mohammed Jabbar, said that the Turkish company McConnoon specialized in the dairy industry will take over the operation of the Abu Ghraib dairy for 15 years.
The Iraqi official explained that all employees working in the lab will retain their jobs without any change, while the company will invest the plant production and import of raw materials and marketing products.
He added that the Turkish company will also take over the task of changing mechanisms for the dairy industry, without disclosing the financial costs of the investment contract.
The Abu Ghraib dairy factory, located 20 kilometers west of Baghdad, is one of the largest dairy factories in Iraq. It was founded in 1958 during the reign of King Faisal II.
After the US invasion of Iraq, the factory was destroyed after 2003, and many of its contents were stolen. The Ministry of Commerce subsequently began to rehabilitate it, but it suffers from administrative and logistical problems that prevented it from being a competitor to imported dairy products.