‘Israeli Attacks Fail to Halt Inflow of Foreign Capital’

JEDDAH, 2 August 2006 — Amr Al-Dabbagh, the governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), said the recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon and Palestine and the Iraq war have neither affected the investment climate in the Kingdom nor checked the strong inflow of foreign capital.

Al-Dabbagh told Arab News yesterday that foreign direct investment in the Kingdom has increased as the country’s international investment rating jumped to 38 from 67 last year.

Al-Dabbagh made his comments following the signing of an agreement with the Iyad Al-Sibaie law firm for a mutual exchange of expertise in Jeddah.

The agreement stems from the principle of benefiting from the experience of the private sector for increasing the expertise of the SAGIA staff. This experience will reflect on the performance of the SAGIA, the governor said.

Iyad Al-Sibaie, director general of the law firm said his firm was selected by SAGIA after detailed studies and hoped that the agreement would be beneficial to both the parties in terms of expertise. “The role of the firm will be complementary to each other,” he said. He also hoped that the new agreement would help the investors in simplifying their investment procedures considerably.