In Iraq’s Mosul, a wholesale market revives trade legacy

In Iraq’s Mosul, a wholesale market revives trade legacy

In Iraq's Mosul, a wholesale market revives trade legacy

In Iraq's Mosul, a wholesale market revives trade legacy

In Iraq's Mosul, a wholesale market revives trade legacy

An Iraqi salesman waits for customers at the entrance of a shop at the Al-Bursa wholesale market in Mosul. The city has been a commercial hub for centuries. (AFP)

Short Url

In Iraq's Mosul, a wholesale market revives trade legacy

Even after the guns fell silent, many families hesitated to return as the city lacked services

Updated 06 December 2020

Follow @arabnews

MOSUL: Mountains of kitchen supplies, back-to-back butchers: the historic wholesale market in Iraq's Mosul is battling the odds “” from extremists to epidemic “” to revive the city's reputation as a trading hub.

The northern city was a commercial hub for centuries, strategically located along transport routes linking Baghdad to the south, Syria to the west, Turkey further north and Iran in the east.

Thirty years ago, Mosul opened a bulk market known as "Al-Bursa,“ whose shops sold food, homeware and other goods directly to consumers as well as to smaller shops.

"The market raked in around $12 million every month,“ said economist Mohammad Naef, a native of Mosul.

But those golden days came to a screeching halt in 2014, when the Daesh group began