Two French companies said on Friday they had won business contracts worth up to 90 million euros from the Iraqi authorities to build naval craft and an airport in the country.

Iraqi authorities promised shipbuilder OCEA a contract worth up to 60 million euros (84 million dollars) to build two naval support vessels, its chief executive Roland Joassard said.

It also applied for a deal to build six naval interceptor craft.

ADPI, part of the Paris airport operator ADP, beat off competition from three US firms to win a 30-million-euro contract to design an airport in Karbala, south of the capital, its director Alain Le Pajolec said.

He added that his company was in the running for an airport project in Baghdad and in the major southern city of Basra.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon visited Baghdad on Thursday with a delegation of officials and business leaders, two days after US troops withdrew from urban areas under a pact that will see them leave Iraq by the end of 2011.