* Kurdish Arbil gets majority of investment
* $6 bln UAE project fell through
By Jack Kimball and Shamal Aqrawi
ARBIL, Iraq, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdistan has attracted more than $12 billion from local and foreign investors in non-oil sectors over the last three-and-a-half years, mainly in housing, the region's investment body said on Monday.
Iraq's largely autonomous northern region has enjoyed relative stability compared with its south, which has been wracked by violence since the 2003 U.S. invasion, and is trying to lure investors into real estate, banking and industry.
"We want to tell companies that we have a very different situation than the rest of Iraq," said Kamaran Mufti, a director general at the Kurdistan Regional Government's Board of Investment. "Those who come early will get more benefits."
Foreign companies have invested around $3.1 billion from August 2006 to February this year, according to the investment body. Figures would be higher, but a $6 billion deal in real estate with a firm from the United Arab Emirates fell through, Mufti said in an interview with Reuters.
The largest foreign investors in terms of money were from Kuwait and Lebanon, according to the board's figures. The Kurdish capital of Arbil was the most popular destination for investor cash.
Investment from Iraqi national companies was about $8.59 billion during the same period, the body said. Joint ventures accounted for around $660 million, it said.
The board's investment figures do not include the oil sector where oil firms such as Norway's DNO, Turkey's Genel Enerji and Jersey-based Heritage have struck production-sharing agreements.
Kurds, who were slaughtered by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and fought a bloody civil war amongst themselves in the 1990s, maintained de facto independence from Baghdad after the first Gulf war, protected by a U.N. no-fly zone.
Since the U.S.-led invasion, a larger row between Arabs and Kurds about land and oil rights, including control over the oil-rich area of Kirkuk, has posed a major threat to stability in Iraq, which has a national election on March 7.
Mufti said that public and high-income housing, industries like cement, and agriculture were top destinations for investment. Banking was also a large attraction, he said.
According to the board's figures, the body issued 241 investment licences from August 2006 to February 2010. Mufti said that of about 1,200 foreign companies working in Kurdistan, the greatest number -- some 620 -- were from Turkey.
Housing attracted around $4.7 billion in the same period with $2.29 billion in banking, $1.6 billion in industry and $1.1 billion in tourism, the board said.
"We want to tell investors that we need them ... it doesn't make a difference if they are local or foreign investors," Mufti said. (Editing by Michael Christie and Stephen Nisbet)