Umm Qasr Port is choking with trucks, with warnings that 10,000 trucks could soon be stuck.
Umm Qasr Port is choking with trucks, with warnings that 10,000 trucks could soon be stuck.
2025-09-23 01:13
Shafaq News – Basra
The northern port of Umm Qasr in Basra Governorate witnessed a worsening crisis on Tuesday, with more than 3,600 trucks piling up in the welcome yard. An additional 200 trucks are entering the port daily, while the number of trucks exiting does not exceed 1,200 per day. This threatens to increase the number to more than 10,000 if the current system remains unaddressed.
A number of factory owners from central and southern cities told Shafaq News Agency, “Our factories have been completely closed for more than forty days due to delayed arrivals of raw materials and disruptions in the supply chain, which has led to losses amounting to billions of dinars. No factory’s losses are less than 200 to 400 million dinars due to late payment fines.”
The industrialists explained that “these fines are paid to obscure private companies, most of which are foreign, not Iraqi, which leads to the smuggling of funds out of the country instead of keeping them within the local market.” They considered that “these measures amount to a war on Iraqi industry and a deliberate weakening of its ability to continue.”
They stressed that “continued delays and failure to address the crisis will lead to a complete paralysis in various industrial sectors,” calling on the government to “urgently intervene and reorganize the truck unloading mechanism to preserve national economic interests and prevent the drain on funds.”
The Iraqi Border Ports Authority announced on Monday that it had foiled an attempt to smuggle three containers at the northern Umm Qasr port in Basra Governorate. The containers contained illegally hidden medical and military supplies.
shafaq.com
