[Gulf states are pouring money into Iraq] Twenty years after the Iraq War, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other Gulf countries have for the first time invested billions of dollars in housing and other sectors in Iraq, setting off an investment boom in Iraq. Saudi Arabia says it has invested more than $5 billion in various sectors in Iraq, particularly housing projects in Baghdad. Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, PIF, said it would set up a $3 billion investment arm in Iraq that would cover infrastructure, mining, agriculture, real estate development and financial services. The Saudi ambassador to Iraq said that Iraq's "Baghdad Avenue" project is the largest Saudi investment project in Iraq, the investment scale of about 1 billion dollars, will build shopping malls, 4,000 apartments and 2,500 villas. The United Arab Emirates, the first Gulf country to invest in Iraq, said it was optimistic about real estate projects in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and would expand its investment in Iraq. The UAE company Emaar plans to invest $3 billion in housing projects in Baghdad. Qatar is investing in the Baghdad housing project in a public-private partnership of an unspecified size, and said it would increase its investment in Iraq. Iraqi government officials said Baghdad will have 10 real estate projects announced in the future, with an initial estimate of about $15 billion worth of projects, which are backed by investment from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. Editor/Xu Shengpeng

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• 2024.03.18 18:09
• [Europe: Install solar on the roof of all new residential buildings from 2030]
• The European Parliament has formally adopted the revised Energy Performance Directive for Buildings (EPBD), which will become law after formal approval by the Council of Ministers. The directive requires all new residential buildings in the EU to be powered by rooftop solar from 2030, and public buildings and non-residential buildings will need to be phased in according to their scale and technical and economic assessments. The EPBD aims to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector in line with the EU's goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. Currently, the building sector accounts for 40% of the EU's total energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of improving energy efficiency in buildings is to enhance energy independence and sustainability in this sector by reducing the use of imported oil and gas fuels. Under the forthcoming rules, all new buildings occupied or owned by public bodies will need to be zero-emission by 2028, and all new buildings from 2030 onwards. Member States need to clearly plan the measures taken to decarbonize heating systems in order to phase out fossil fuels in heating and cooling by 2040. From 2025, stand-alone fossil fuel boilers will no longer receive subsidies, but hybrid heating systems that use renewable energy will be eligible for financial incentives. Editor/Xu Shengpeng

• 2024.03.18 18:09
• [Germany plans to build fusion power plants]
• Germany's Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger has announced a new fusion research funding program aimed at paving the way for the construction of the first fusion power plant in Germany by 2040. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has long supported fusion research at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching and Greifswald, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Jurich Research Centre (FZJ). "This institutional funding is complemented by the second pillar of the new Project Funding Scheme," the ministry said. "The project funding aims to advance the technologies, components and materials required for fusion power plants in the first phase by the early 2030s. The second phase focuses on integration into the power plant design. The funding program is open to technology and addresses so-called magnetic confinement and laser fusion technology." In order to achieve the construction of fusion power stations as soon as possible, the program is essentially application-oriented collaborative research as a form of public-private partnership. Projects on specific sub-technologies will be carried out jointly by research institutions, universities and industry. This allows new findings from the research to be applied at an early stage and know-how to be transferred to domestic industries for further use, the ministry said. Editor/Xu Shengpeng