DUBAI: Kuwait is talking with Asian countries about securing food supplies and investing in agriculture as the Gulf state looks to diversify its sources of food, state news agency KUNA reported yesterday.
It said food import was a key topic on a trip by Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah to eight Asian countries to boost trade ties.
And a delegation including the Kuwait Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund, will visit Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar later this month to look at investments in agriculture and industry, KUNA quoted Finance Minister Mustapha Al-Shamali as saying.
The delegation will include the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development and Kuwait Flour Mills and Bakery Co., Al-Shamali said.
“A Kuwaiti delegation will be visiting these three countries as of the 19th of this month to get better acquainted with their laws and regulations, and to explore opportunities for real estate, industrial and agricultural investments,” KUNA said.
Referring to this month’s trip to Asia by Sheikh Nasser, KUNA reported: “One of the main topics discussed was food imports from these countries as a means for securing food supply, facilitating Kuwaiti energy supply to them, as well as cooperation in oil exploration and the agricultural field.”
Kuwait’s cooperative union said last month the Gulf state was interested in investing in farmland abroad to help secure food supplies.
Inflation in the world’s seventh-largest oil exporter has hit record above 11 percent this year, driven by higher food and housing costs. Kuwait imports most of its food.
Other states in the world’s biggest oil-exporting region are also looking abroad to secure food supplies. The Saudi government is negotiating on behalf of Saudi investors to set up projects in Sudan, Egypt, Ukraine, Pakistan and Turkey for wheat, barley, soybean, rice and animal fodder. The KIA plans to as much as triple its investments in Japan to $48 billion, KUNA reported earlier this month, quoting Al-Shamali, who said the investments follow an agreement to avoid double taxation between the two countries.
Kuwait was also discussing boosting investments in South Korea and looking into “cooperation in the oil and gas sector” with Japan, Thailand and Brunei, KUNA said yesterday, without giving details.
Meanwhile, a planned refinery joint venture in southern China between state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC) and Sinopec Corp. is expected to cost up to $4 billion above initial estimates, KUNA cited KPC’s head as saying.
The Kuwait-Chinese refinery and petrochemical project is expected to cost between $8 billion to $9 billion, Saad Al-Shuwaib, chief executive of KPC told Chinese magazine Finance and Economy, KUNA reported late on Friday.
The project, which had been estimated to have a $5 billion price tag, got the approval of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Al-Shuwaib told the magazine. KPC and Sinopec, Asia’s top refiner, received preliminary government approval for the Guangdong plant in 2006, but negotiations for major projects in the sensitive energy sector can sometimes drag on for years.
The refinery will be designed to process 100 percent Kuwaiti crude supplied by KPC, with a capacity of 15 million tons per year, or 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), said KUNA. KPC has said it aims to become one of China’s top five crude suppliers within three years and in 2008 alone will boost imports to 115,000 barrels per day from 88,000 bpd last year.
By 2015, KPC expects to supply between 500,000 and 700,000 barrels per day of crude to the Nansha plant and a second one in Quanzhou owned by a smaller firm, Sinochem, an executive from the firm’s overseas arm said in June.