JEDDAH, 3 October — Billionaire businessman Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, who has major investments in the United States, is seeking to contain the damage there to the Kingdom’s image following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Financial Times reported yesterday.
Interviewed in his Riyadh office, Prince Alwaleed said the attacks had not affected his own investment relationship with US companies, but that things are no longer the same.
“It hasn’t affected me and I don’t anticipate that it will in the future,” he said. However, “business is not as usual ... the perception of Americans of Saudis can never be the same.
“Our job, as politicians and businessmen, is to minimize the effects by showing solidarity with the Western world, condemning terrorism and ... not letting security hinder our operations and movements.”
The British newspaper noted that Saudis are now looked upon with suspicion in the US and that some have been harassed. It said Saudis are likely to limit their travel, and that some investors may want to repatriate their funds.
But it quoted Prince Alwaleed as saying his investment priorities would not change, and that he has been accumulating US stocks since the terror attacks in New York and Washington. He had put $400 million into US equity markets since Sept. 11 as part of a $1 billion planned investment in US and Europe stocks.
He said the tragedy should serve as a wake-up call to Americans and Arabs, and that it must spur more cooperation.
Prince Alwaleed said he is an “ally of the Americans, politically, economically, financially; all my investments are there, but I’m also pro-Arab and pro-Islam.”
Both groups have to look at this and at the root causes of the problems, he added.
The newspaper, citing analysts in Riyadh, said strong anti-American feelings in Saudi Arabia were primarily driven by US support for Israel. That, it said, has left some people “at best ambivalent about the attacks, if not satisfied.”
The Saudi government is seeking to balance its co-operation with the US in the fight against terrorism with a clear message that the Kingdom cannot be used as a launch pad for attacks against another Muslim country. It is urging Washington to narrow its military response and broaden its reaction to address socio-economic and regional political causes of terrorism.
Prince Alwaleed commented: “America is seen as being anti-Islamic and anti-Arab; it’s wrong because it’s not true, but that is the perception. What took place is the crime of the millennium.
“Still, we have to look at the causes and the perceptions that the US is the main backer of Israel.”
Prince Alwaleed has amassed a personal fortune of $20.3 billion and is ranked as the world’s fifth wealthiest entrepreneur by the US magazine Forbes. He built his global financial empire by investing in major companies experiencing hard times.
