29 April 2003

Weekly Update

(19 – 25 April 2003)

Value of “Shippable” Priority Items for Iraq Reaches $549 million

Under New Resolution

The value of priority goods and supplies that can be shipped to Iraq from the Oil-for-Food pipeline within the new 3 June timeline offered by Security Council resolution 1476 (2003), reached $548.6 million this week. The increased value of shippable items from last week’s total of $455 million was directly related to the extension of time granted to suppliers under the new resolution. 

Resolution 1476 (2003) of 24 April gave the Programme an additional 21 days in which to identify priority items identified as food, medicines, health supplies and water and sanitation supplies, for shipping to Iraq.  Most of these supplies, covered by 206 contracts, are in the food ($262.4 million), electricity ($144.8 million) and health ($57.4 million) sectors and are already in transit to Iraq.  

The Office of the Iraq Programme and UN agencies and programmes are continuing to identify the most easily accessible priority items in the pipeline and negotiate with suppliers to speed the shipment of supplies under already approved contracts. The UN agencies and programmes actively involved in the review of the Oil-for-Food pipeline are: FAO, UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO, WFP. 

Food shipments arrive

Oil-for-Food shipments to the Jordanian port of Aqaba this week included 20,000 tons of bagged rice and 12,500 tons of bagged sugar. Fifty thousand tons of wheat arrived in Kuwait last week. Shipments into northern Iraq this week included 2,479 metric tonnes of high energy biscuits and 2,008 metric tonnes of sugar.

Media Note

Mr. Benon Sevan, Executive Director of the Office of the Iraq Programme, will speak at the National Press Club in Washington tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10.a.m.

Additional information is available from the website of the Office of the Iraq Programme. For further information please contact Ian Steele email: steelei@un.org