Baghdad: The Ministry of Planning held its fifteenth meeting of the committee established by the Prime Minister’s Office to prepare for the Fourth Arab Summit on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) on Tuesday. The meeting was chaired by the Ministry’s Technical Undersecretary, Maher Hammad Johaan, and attended by committee members and supporting entities to follow up on the preparatory procedures for launching the project.

According to National Iraqi News Agency, the meeting began with a review of the minutes of the fourteenth meeting, followed by a discussion and approval of the observations submitted by committee members. The negotiating team presented the outcomes of the negotiation session and the financial offer presented to the company organizing the project, noting the achieved financial reductions in the total price.

The committee decided to invite company representatives to open a direct discussion to finalize the items and clauses subject to the final reductions and to ratify the decision of the preparatory committee and the ESCWA team. The media committee also presented a table of observations and suggestions on the media sections of the financial offer, with the aim of approving the final promotional plan for the project, including its financial aspects.

The committee followed up on the procedures for opening an account with the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI), a requirement for project implementation. The sponsors’ committee presented the results of the second sponsors’ conference for private colleges and discussed preparations for the third sponsors’ conference for banks. They also reviewed the status of correspondence sent to international organizations and agencies, including the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union, and Korean, Japanese, and German agencies.

The meeting concluded with a review by the technical committee of the number of registered local and international participants, categorized by type, including startups, projects, media companies and journalists, and experts. The attendees emphasized the importance of continuing to hold regular meetings to finalize remaining matters and ensure the project’s launch according to the established timeline.

The meeting was attended by a number of directors general, representatives from the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, and the Ministries of Planning, Trade, Agriculture, Labor, and Youth and Sports, in addition to the National Investment Commission and the Federation of Chambers of Commerce.