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The U.S. Agency for International Development on Friday awarded its ninth Iraq reconstruction contract - this one for "economic recovery, reform and sustained growth in Iraq" - to McLean, Va.-based consulting firm BearingPoint Inc. The other Iraq contracts, which have been awarded over the last five months, deal with everything from seaport and airport administration to primary education.

Under the terms of the latest deal, BearingPoint consultants will help to improve economic and regulatory policy-making in Iraq by working with the Iraqi Central Bank and Ministry of Finance. The firm will also help implement plans to privatize Iraqi state-owned enterprises, and support private sector entrepreneurship.

As it has with most of the other Iraq reconstruction contracts, AID limited competition for the contract to 10 firms that it solicited for bids in early June. In addition to BearingPoint, the firms were Booz Allen Hamilton, Nathan, IBM Global Services, Development Alternatives, Carana, Abt Associates, Chemonics, Deloitte & Touche, and Financial Markets International. One of those firms - Washington-based Chemonics - will work as a BearingPoint subcontractor. Two other consulting firms, J.E. Austin Associates and The Services Group, both of Arlington, Va., will also subcontract from BearingPoint. The contract, for $9 million initially, has a cost ceiling of $79.6 million and was awarded on a cost-plus-fixed-fee basis. It is for one year, but may be extended by AID for up to two additional years.

AID will supervise the work, but policy decisions aimed at furthering economic recovery in Iraq will continue to be made by the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by Paul Bremer and the Treasury Department.

Tom Ramsey, an attorney with Squires, Sanders & Dempsey in Washington, said the rule of law must be established in Iraq before new economic systems are put in place. Ramsey's firm has advised government officials on economic and legal issues relating to the reconstruction and the process of reconstituting trade and commerce.

The AID contract will cover civil governance, as well as fiscal, tax and customs reform. The U.S. occupation authority has said it will privatize a number of Iraqi companies that were formerly state-owned.

BearingPoint, formerly known as KPMG Consulting, currently holds a three-year, $39.9 million contract to do economic consulting work in Afghanistan. Under that deal, BearingPoint is working with the Afghan government to formulate tax policy and implement budget planning; to bolster the Afghan Central Bank; to set up a regulatory framework to allow the re-emergence of a commercial banking sector; and to help the Afghan government implement trade reforms.

Angelique Rewers, a spokeswoman for the company, said that BearingPoint will begin sending about 100 employees to Iraq on Aug. 1.

Shane Harris contributed to this report.

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