More than 1,000 projects worth nearly 24 trillion Iraqi dinars ($16.5 billion) have not been completed in Iraq due to delays by contractors and other reasons, an Iraq official was reported on Friday as saying.

They are part of 7,050 projects with a combined value of around 276 trillion dinars ($190 billion) under way in the OPEC member, Planning Ministry spokesman Abdul Zahra Hindawi told the official Iraqi news agency.

“Of those projects, there are nearly 1,452 stalled projects with a total value of around 24 trillion dinars…we are taking measures to tackle this problem,”Hindawi said.

He noted that one of the solutions is to cancel all the projects with an execution rate of below 10 percent on the grounds they have been stalled for a long time and require large funds and long time to restart them.

The stalled projects  include 63 in transport and communication, 94 in industry, 387 in housing and services, 51 in farming and 857 in urban development, he added.