Iraq’s government said on Monday it would “cooperate” with German engineering group Siemens in a potential deal to develop the country’s power grid, but gave no further details.
Siemens and US rival General Electric have been competing for a possible $15 million deal to develop Iraq’s electricity infrastructure.
“The (Iraqi) cabinet decided to implement a road map for the electricity sector in cooperation with Siemens,” the government said in a statement, without elaborating.
It did not mention GE and did not say whether Siemens would be the only company involved in the power grid development.
Siemens had been favorite to win a contract to supply 11 gigawatts of power-generation equipment in the possible $15 billion deal, though the Financial Times reported in October that the German group may have to share the work with GE after pressure from the US administration.