Reuters reported that France's Lafarge and Iraqi partner Asiacell is planning to invest around USD 550 million to raise cement capacity in Northern Iraq to help meet a shortage in the region.

Mr Faruk Mustafa Rasool chairman of Asiacell said that Lafarge already has a 65% stake in an existing 7,500 tonne a day plant at Bazyan in Iraq's Kurdish region. He added that "We will build a second line with capacity of 7,500 tonnes a day and the cost would be similar to the USD 550 million spent to build the first line."

Iraq has been working for the past 3 years to bring foreign investors to invest as much as USD 2 billion in its cement factories, but political interference and instability has delayed the effort.

The Iraqi cement industry's total annual production, from 17 factories, is between 4 million and 5 million tonnes, a fraction of its capacity of 25 million tonnes. Iraq imports around 6 million tonnes a year of cement from neighboring Syria and Lebanon to cover consumption.