RIYADH, 20 March 2006 — US Ambassador James C. Oberwetter has said the business relationship between the Kingdom and the US is getting stronger. He was speaking at a reception at the Equestrian Club hosted by the US-Saudi Arabian Business Council (USABC) in honor of the visiting American Safety and Security delegation. A 20-member delegation from 11 US companies headed by Lisa C. Huot, is currently in the Kingdom visiting Riyadh and Dammam. Abdullah Al-Ohaili, executive director of the USABC and chairman of the Saudi Investment Bank, hosted the reception.
Oberwetter said there would be an investment promotion delegation coming soon to Riyadh, adding a series of US delegations would be coming to the Kingdom to explore new areas of cooperation. “These activities demonstrate the improving relationship between the two countries,” he said.
He said there was a growing interest among Saudis to visit the US for education and business. Some 7,000 Saudi students have been interviewed by the US mission for studies in American colleges. Last year, he said the number of Saudi applicants for US visas increased from 16,000 to 26,000. He also said plans are under way to issue visas from the US Consulate in Jeddah. “This will be implemented soon depending on the approval of the Saudi government.” To ease the workload of the Riyadh mission, the envoy said that he wanted to issue visas from the US Consulate in Dhahran. “It takes 12 weeks to get an appointment and it will take only a week to process the visas from the date of the interview,” he said.
Huot said that the Kingdom is an important market to US in supplying security items. The United States has a 60 percent share of the $441 million market in the Kingdom.