ABU DHABI ø The United States seeks Gulf Arab contractors for a range of energy and development projects in Iraq.

The U.S. State Department has been encouraging firms from Gulf Cooperation Council states to become subcontractors to U.S. companies that have won $6.7 billion of projects. Over the next two weeks, the United States has arranged for GCC executives to meet these U.S. companies to discuss partnerships in Iraq.

On April 20, the U.S. consulate has scheduled an Iraqi reconstruction conference in Dubai with 12 U.S. contractors for the Coalition Provisional Authority, Middle East Newsline reported. They were expected to include Kellogg, Brown and Root, Parsons Corp, Lucent Technologies, Washington Group International, Contrack, Flour-AMEC and Perini and Shaw International.

The U.S. contractors, all of whom won awards for projects in Iraq, will later visit such Middle East cities as Amman and Istanbul.