In October 2009 U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and acting U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Robert Ford visited a kebab restaurant owned and run by an Al-Thiqa borrower while on their trip to Erbil, Iraq. The borrower had taken two loans from AL-Thiqa to expand his business, which also includes a pizzeria next door. Al-Thiqa General Manager Abbas Saedy hosted the officials and gave them a brief introduction to Al-Thiqa, which at that time had 2,400 active clients in Erbil. The restaurant owner explained to the delegation that when he applied for his first loan from Al-Thiqa, he only had a small pizzeria. He used the proceeds from his two loans to turn an adjacent room into the kebab restaurant. Shortly before the visit he was approved for his third loan to make further business improvements. Erbil is the second-largest branch of Al-Thiqa. About 20 percent of active clients are women who are engaged in various entrepreneurial activities, including hair salons, sewing enterprises and day care centers. The visitors praised Al-Thiqa on its work in Kurdistan and said that they wanted to see more development of its kind in other areas.