The chairman of the state-run Trade Bank of Iraq has said the lender plans to expand abroad and nearly double its number of branches in Iraq next year to benefit from an anticipated oil boom, Reuters has reported. The bank, which currently has 15 branches in Iraq, plans to open another eight or nine branches next year and to have a foothold in Beirut, London and Istanbul to feed the appetite of investors eyeing Iraq. “We expect that by end of next year we should cover all of Iraq plus we will have three branches outside of Iraq,” the bank’s chairman Hussein al-Uzri said.