The Iraqi National Investment Commission (NIC) is facing major problems in marketing units in the largest residential project in the country, despite the growing housing crisis in the capital of Baghdad. This raises questions about the benefit of the government’s investment in such projects.

Although the advertising campaign for the Besmaya residential project southeast of Baghdad was launched a year and a half ago, thousands of residential units are still available at the complex. This project represents the first step in the Iraqi government's plan to build one million residential units over the coming few years.

The NIC, which is the official body concerned with the project, said, “The Besmaya project is spread over an area of 18 million square meters, and includes 100,000 residential units that can accommodate 600,000 people.” It explains that the contract for this project was awarded to Hanwha, one of the largest global construction companies of South Korea.

At the end of September 2011, the NIC offered through its website the project’s residential units directly to Iraqi citizens, and announced that work on the residential units will begin in early 2013. This came after it had previously promised that the project’s infrastructure would be established in 2012. However, 2012 has passed and the project’s infrastructure and residential units have yet to be completed.