Toyota Tsusho Corporation (Toyota Tsusho) announced today that, together with Egyptian engineering company ELSEWEDY Electric For Power System Projects (ELSEWEDY), it has signed the contract with the Ministry of Electricity of Iraq to construct a stationary electrical substation. Worth approximately 10 billion yen, this project will be funded by Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) Loan via the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), as part of Japan's assistance for the reconstruction of Iraq. The substation is scheduled for completion in March 2022.

Iraq has suffered from chronic power shortages, with outages of approximately six hours per day. The country is rehabilitating old and building new power plants in order to expand and stabilize its electricity supply; however, this increase in generation capacity has created an urgent need for more substations.

The project entails the construction of a 400/132kV stationary electrical substation in New Babil, Babil Governorate, approximately 120km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Toyota Tsusho will procure the substation’s gas insulated switchgear (GIS) and transformers—which form part of its core equipment—from Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation; ELSEWEDY will carry out the engineering and designing, procurement of auxiliary equipment, and the construction work of the substation. The increase in substation capacity as a result of this project will contribute to the stabilization of the electricity supply to the entire Babil Governorate, which is home to a population of approximately 1.9 million people.

Toyota Tsusho views Iraq as one of the important markets. Going forward, the company intends to proactively engage in the establishment of the country’s infrastructure and so contribute to its reconstruction and development.

Toyota Tsusho opened an office in Baghdad in 1954 and, became the first Japanese company to win an order for gas turbines from the Ministry of Electricity of Iraq in 1970s. Since then, Toyota Tsusho has sought to establish strong business foundations in Iraq through the construction of substations and the provision of port cargo handling facilities, dredgers and other equipment. More recently, in March 2017 Toyota Tsusho has signed a contract to undertake an approximately 60-billion-yen project for construction of substations; the construction is currently in progress on the project, which is financed by Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) Buyer’s Credit Scheme.