Making a killing in the new Iraq as cars, TVs, food and fridges flood in

[charrison]

linkage

All day long, televisions, fridges and crates of food are heaved by crane from the ship's overflowing hold to be packed into trucks waiting to race north to the markets of Basra, Baghdad and the northern Kurdish cities. Further along the dockside, a line of cars newly arrived from Dubai rolls off another ship.
Dozens of ships crowd the docks each day at Abu Flus, on the Shatt al-Arab waterway of southern Iraq, and offload vast cargos of food and consumer goods from the Gulf. There are no taxes, no tariffs and only the most cursory customs checks but for now this is quite legal in the new open market of Iraq. Fortunes are there to be made.

By night the docks open for their clandestine customers. Bribes silence the policemen and unlock the gates to allow en terprising young men to deliver tanker-loads of Iraqi fuel which are loaded on to rusting hulks to be smuggled back out to the Gulf. Thousands of dollars exchange hands every trip.

For years under Saddam Hussein's regime the large concrete docks at Abu Flus - the name means "father of money" - were desolate and used only for the occasional oil export.

Today few scenes in postwar Iraq capture so powerfully the exuberance and the lawlessness that has accompanied America's invasion and its promises of free trade and open markets.

...

Typical prices of newly imported, foreign-made goods in the shops and markets of Baghdad

· Cooker $90 (£52)

· Television $180

· Fridge $180

· Satellite dish and receiver $200

· Hi-fi $200

 

[Genesys]

wonder what kind of cars...and how much