Kurdistan government in Iraq hopes digitalization will bring investment
The Kurdistan Regional Government has made progress digitizing government services, but investors say more is needed to attract serious capital and spur startup growth.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq launched a “digital transformation” strategy in October to digitize a variety of government functions. The deputy minister of the KRG Department of Information Technology said that digitalization will help bring investment to the autonomous region.
“The more you go digital, the more transparency and efficiency will be visible to possible investors,” Hiwa Afandi told Al-Monitor.
The KRG has already made some progress with digitalization, but some investors say more needs to be done — including at the federal level — in order to attract investment to the Kurdistan Region and Iraq at large.
The KRG Strategy for Digital Transformation is an ambitious plan to make the government one of the most digital in the Middle East by 2025. This means they want government services to be offered digitally by this time. Taxation and business registration are among the services the KRG plans to make digital. The KRG also wants to "empower innovative tech startups," according to the official document.
