Marketing Iraqi goods at Walmart and Sears

NY Times:

Iraqi and American officials think Iraq’s ailing economy could get a kick-start from American consumers interested in giving Iraqi-made clothes as Christmas presents.

“We are hoping if everything goes well, by Thanksgiving and Christmas we will have from the Mosul factory teenage clothing, and from the Najaf factory ready-made suits, and from the leather industries here, leather jackets, and so on,” Sami Al-Araji, the deputy industry minister, said Sunday during the announcement of a plan to put state industries back to work.

Mr. Al-Araji said an American team led by Paul A. Brinkley, the deputy under secretary of defense for business transformation in Iraq, was in discussions with major American retailers like Sears and Wal-Mart to have the clothing on sale in a limited number of major cities by the holiday season.

The first move into American markets would be mainly symbolic, he said, involving 10,000 to 12,000 leather jackets, 20,000 to 25,000 suits priced around $80 to $90, and a similar number of garments for teenagers.

“We could go higher, but we thought we would start modestly,” he added.

Mr. Brinkley, a proponent of the theory that getting Iraq’s state-owned industries back to work will revitalize the economy and lure unemployed Iraqis away from the insurgency, would not comment on discussions “that are under way with any specific retailers.”

However, he confirmed that negotiations were taking place with some American retailers. He also said that Shelmar Inc., a Memphis-based chain with 60 stores in eight states, had placed an order with an Iraqi state-owned clothing factory to buy a “few thousand” units of children’s clothes.

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They are probably no threat to China as a trading partner, but it could be a good idea, provided the AFL-CIO and the Democrats don't come down on the side of the insurgents in a trade dispute. I think we need to do this with Afghanistan too. An afghan from Afghanistan would be a warm seller. Then there are those cool hats worn by the Afghans. They are much more interesting than the turbans worn south of there.