It’s hardly surprising that a trade show in a country steeped in violence, where most banks cannot make electronic transfers, is, um, a little different. So it is on the outskirts of Sulaymaniyah, the Iraqi Kurdish city hosting this week’s Kurdistan 2007 business exchange. Held in a yellow, warehouselike exposition hall, it’s the place to go if you want Iranian elevators, gleaming Turkish kitchen equipment or just a good show of eclectic entrepreneurship. The Czech arms dealer opted to display photos of his Kalashnikov rifles rather than bringing the real thing. But a uniform maker did bring some samples, including Chinese knockoffs of U.S. Army togs, complete with digitized camouflage.
Then there was an entrancing booth run by the Kurdish regional ministry of the interior at which an enthusiastic captain displayed handcuffs and thick nightsticks to a group of high-school girls in navy blue uniforms. “They are for saluting your superiors, not beating people,” he told the girls (though they looked like they could do the beating job too). A ministry video showed plainclothes cops firing blindly at criminals hiding in a shadowy courtyard and then trying to blast them out with high-pressure fire hoses. Nearby, some South Africans promoted a new line of mine-resistant vehicles. For the peckish, most of the more than 200 merchants had candy dishes to entice the crowds; a food company offered free pickles.
“It is for helping the investment man,” said smiling, necktied 22-year-old Soran Mohammed Saeed, explaining his exhibit for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Investment Board. Indeed, the KRG is pretty helpful, offering new companies exemptions from customs and all taxes for 10 years, and other inducements in exchange for locating in a region where the power supply and legal safeguards are still spotty. The annual expo aims to draw foreign money to the region and help connect local agents with outside producers. This year there were more than 200 participants. Many were ministries from either the Kurdish region or the central government in Baghdad, and many others were Iraq-based firms. About 15 foreign companies had booths. But the provenance was sometimes complex. I met an Iraqi-American from California representing an Amman, Jordan-based water tank supplier owned by Iraqis; it was too dangerous for them to operate from their homeland.
Security is much less of a problem in the semiautonomous Kurdish north than in the rest of Iraq—foreigners can walk the streets openly—and the trade fair was just lightly guarded. But there were a few security options for those browsing. Bereft of professional logos and slick brochures, some reps from an Iraqi state company offered souped-up versions of those mirror racks you wheel under cars to check for bombs. With rough welding they’d rigged on cameras and monitors. They’d done the same to a remote-controlled toy car.
The glitz of the big consumer brands stood in stark contrast to the somewhat depressingly stripped-down, science-fair nature of the Iraqi government displays. Perhaps the biggest brand of all in this part of Iraq is the locally owned Asiacell mobile phone company. Its exhibit, emblazoned in red, gray and white, was divided into salons for displaying phones, a wall-size map showing their vast signal range and shiny metal towers framing sales counters. Some of the sales staff were eating pizzas they’d had delivered during a break.
There were relatively few petroleum-related businesses, considering that’s really where the money is around here. There were several vendors for electrical generators and other industrial power equipment and a lot of tractors, bulldozers and other construction gear—a clear sign of the construction boom going on here. The big Turkish appliance companies were represented—they dominate the market—as were Iranian tractors and Chinese pickups. Among the minority of American brands present were FedEx, DHL and Motorola, through local reps; there was also a booth that showed drawings of the future 5,000-student campus of the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani.
There were vices on hand too, including a few cigarette wholesalers and a Kurdish liquor distributor displaying bottles of Jim Beam, Ballantine’s and Courvoisier. Liquor rep Salam Kareem Kadir, who wore a necklace featuring a tiny Jim Beam electric guitar with flashing lights, said the growth of strict Islam throughout Iraq hasn’t stopped sales to Baghdad. “People are afraid, but the demand is still high,” he mused.
The expo directory is stocked with marketing clichés with a local twist. The Erbil-based Ster Group, which offers everything from construction to insurance, boasts of being “one of Iraq’s fastest-growing conglomerates” with an “unparalleled level of scope and experience.” I found the pitch for the Neyazi Hajar Co. more direct and endearing: “We are big shop for providing all houses and hotels stuff.” Including, presumably, the kitchen sink.
