I've just arrived to Iraq or more specifically Erbil Iraq. It's the largest city in the autonomous region of Kurdistan which
is part of northern Iraq. You literally see a G-Wagon over there. In fact i see a lot of them.
You know the ones that cost more than $130,000 a piece and it doesn't take me long to realize this place is not cheap
A burger of fries and a soda will cost you around six or seven dollars which obviously is cheap for the U.S. but for this part of the world it might
catch you by surprise. Okay i've lived in New York and Hong Kong, but what i mean is this this place
is in some cases five times more expensive than things you would buy in its neighboring countries
Iran, Syria, Turkey. And even a lot more expensive than places like Lebanon and Egypt too. Some of the
cars here amaze me. I just saw a Rolls Royce. It's like i'm in Los Angeles. So there's one question
i have to ask why. After 2003 there were a new version of business and
trading. I'm meeting up with some locals like Ali and his friends who grew up here in the north
so we just got to this place called Empire?
Empire, which has like i guess night life, cafes, coffee shops. You got palm trees. These
apartments- How much do you think these apartments are per month? One thousand dollars
for like a one bedroom. Yeah. This box of chips Ahoy is almost six dollars. It seems like
they actually imported this from Spain because it's all in Spanish and the Facebook group is
chips Ahoy Spain. This is money used here in Iraq. it's called Dinar. This is 25 000 which is about
17 us dollars here you got 10 000 which is about six dollars so 5 000 equals three dollars they
don't use any coins at all everything is paper money and the the smallest one is 250
which is about equal to 16 cents so they don't even use coins here so the lowest
amount that you could charge anyone is 16 cents just keep that in mind like in the us we have
pennies we have nickels we have dimes that's all less than this which is equal to 16 cents.
But sometimes the best representation of the wealth anywhere can be found just looking at the stores
in its nearby mall. What other brands you have? United Colors, Skechers, Lacoste... Any others?
And while i didn't see any Gucci or Cartier, this still really caught me by surprise. Both
speakers are Hugo Boss. Another thing i notice is how many items are priced in U.S.
dollars rather than Iraqi Dinar, and it's not uncommon as most places accept U.S. dollars.
This logo looks oddly like the microsoft logo. I also see this which i presume is a knockoff CVS
pharmacy.lt' s just say they got inspiration from America. This looks exactly like what you would see
in the U.S. you got Skittles, Snickers, Twix, popcorn nachos, hot dogs, Pringles
It's absolutely crazy usually people come in the afternoon or evening. Yeah one
thing i've learned about Kurdistan is people stay at home in the day and come out at night
this is so amazing Halva and ice cream with pistachio and some nuts, 7 000 dinar, equals 4.66 .
the next morning i head to breakfast with Ali and his friends
So this is called Nissik soup
It's a lentil soup and Ali says the soldiers have it every morning for energy protein.
in America you would just get your one plate: eggs, pancake, bacon.
That's breakfast. How do you say delicious in Kurdish?
My favorite thing on the table is actually probably this honey. It's so good.
This guy grabbed the check and paid and didn't let me. Thank you, thank you so much .
This was very kind. Okay so this breakfast for the four of us cost $100
100 U.S. dollars. Compared to all the neighbors, Kurdistan Iraq is much more expensive, why?
Erbil as the capital city of Kurdistan has been a very safe place for for all foreign investors
and companies to come invest in its market, and beside that there are many local companies. They
transfer their businesses from other provinces of Iraq to north of Iraq. It's a good place for
everyone to to come to invest. Iraq's economy is dominated by oil. About one-third of Iraq's oil
is here in Kurdistan region. It holds about 145 billion barrels representing 17% of the approved
reserves in the Middle East and 8% of global reserves. Even during Isis war there
are a lot of projects in real estate sectors and in health sector. According to stats the population
of Kurdistan and especially Erbil has been surging lack of security and basic services made pushed
Iraqi people i mean other people to come and to live in Kurdistan region. Many foreign experts
live and work here in 2014. The government here tried to push the city to become the next Dubai.
A massive hub in the Middle East, but unfortunately at that time Isis appears and many many
projects stopped and even there were many international banks that stopped all their
activities but now fortunately they are starting again to come back and to open their branches
here. I've been genuinely surprised that you have a good amount of labor force coming from Philippines,
coming from India, Lebanon, Syria coming here to work. Our people, i mean local labor,
they cannot work with this money. Go to a place like Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai
you'll see tens of thousands of people from lower wage countries like the Philippines but
who are willing to come and move here to Iraq to work for $400 or $500 a month. But even though isis
has become less of a threat, Erbil's economy is far from certain so Ali tells me that when
he was younger he used to see a lot more people moving to irbil to kurdistan from other countries
for jobs you know to to live here to bring their families and live here but now he actually sees
it happening less and less a lot of it because of isis there are still missile attacks here and its
reliance on oil could prevent it from thriving long-term. That is the reason that why
Kurdistan is expensive. Other countries that have oil are as well expensive, you know,
like Saudi Arabia and gulf countries. Our income is not guaranteed. We have to find other resources
the government should promote the agriculture sector to grow our economy or help.
Maybe in the next 50 years we will not have one liter of oil