BAGHDAD -- Iraq signed contracts worth more than 500 million dollars with foreign firms during the Baghdad International Trade Fair, Trade Minister Mohammad Mahdi Saleh said Sunday.

"We have signed more than 20 contracts with (firms from) Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Iran and Germany totaling more than 500 million dollars," he told reporters at the end of the 10-day fair.

The contracts were mainly in the food, construction and automobile sectors, he said.

Saleh said participation in Baghdad's 35th annual fair had nearly reached pre-1990 levels, with 49 countries taking part this year compared with "between 52 and 55" in the years that preceded the imposition of UN sanctions on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in August 1990, AFP reported.

This year's fair was also marked by the signing of a trade and economic cooperation agreement with former war foe Iran and memorandums of understanding with Yemen and Sri Lanka as a prelude to similar agreements, he said.

In an address to officials and diplomats attending the closing ceremony, Saleh thanked the countries and firms that "came to our country in these circumstances, despite the U.S. administration's impudent threats" against Iraq.

This year's fair was "a huge success, with 49 countries participating ... a token of the mutual desire on the part of Iraq and participating countries to boost economic and trade cooperation," he said.

In addition to deals sealed during the 10-day exhibition, negotiations were kick-started for other contracts, and Baghdad would give firms that showed up at the fair preferential treatment in awarding future contracts, the Iraqi official said.

Another highlight of this year's fair was the reopening of the Arar border crossing between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which had been closed since the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf crisis, "and the participation of brotherly Saudi Arabia with a large delegation for the first time" since the two countries fell apart over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the minister said.

The Iraqi official said it was in the interest of Saudi firms for Riyadh to sign a free trade agreement with Baghdad as many other Arab countries have done, as this would grant Saudi companies the same exemptions from which other Arab firms were now benefiting.

Concluding a free trade accord with Saudi Arabia "is a goal we aspire to (and the two sides are) continuing to study" the proposed deal, he said.

Saleh charged that the revised un sanctions regime under which imports into Iraq have over the past five months been checked against a "goods review list" to ensure they do not include "dual (civilian and military) use" items had hampered rather than eased the flow of goods into the country.

"Contracts worth two billion dollars were approved" by the UN Sanctions Committee over the past five months compared to four billion dollars in the previous corresponding phase of the "oil-for-food" program, which allows Iraq to sell oil under UN supervision to meet the essential needs of its people, according to the minister.

Iraq has consistently accused US and British representatives on the sanctions committee of blocking imports into the country.

Saleh also blamed the United States and Britain for a recent shortage of funds to pay for imports under "oil-for-food" because of the retroactive pricing policy they imposed on Iraqi oil sales, but added that Baghdad's average crude production was now back to over two million barrels per day.

Baghdad "hopes" to have been rid of the UN sanctions by the time next year's fair is held, Saleh said, declining to answer reporters' questions on whether Iraq was about to accept the latest UN security council disarmament resolution that could eventually clear the way for the lifting of the embargo. But he said the fact that so many countries had turned up in Baghdad expressed "the will of the international community to support Iraq against U.S. threats."