RIYADH, 15 June 2004 — The Kingdom has a lot of investment potential but has been clumsy in selling itself on the international market, according to a veteran US consultant.
Andrea H. Pampanini of Amontis Turnaround Associates has helped Saudi companies with restructuring, marketing and planning. He is writing a book to promote the Kingdom. “All I can personally do is to show that Saudi Arabia is a real country, with an increasingly sophisticated business environment, with a rapidly improving social structure and with some real investment opportunities which go beyond oil and petrochemicals,” he said.
The problem is that the Kingdom is saddled with a very poor image, he said. “Essentially, the Saudis are seen as a bunch of Islamic extremists with oil drums and camels, surrounded by sand and palm trees — now possessing Kalashnikovs as well and hell-bent on removing Westerners from the Peninsula.” There is too little to counter such views. “And here I fault the Saudis themselves — they just do not understand the US mindset and the underlying biases which have caused it, and are very poor self-promoters.”
Pamapanini said Saudis must use the same tools as other countries in the region, especially Dubai. “Real information and understanding, properly disseminated, is the only way to go forward, but that will cost money, require an openness to criticism and a clearly stated willingness to change which is hard to come by,” he said.
“The Saudis are not saints, but neither are they the devils that uninformed people have found it so easy to describe them as,” he said.
Saudi Arabia must spell out the measures it is taking about some of the excesses which exist, he suggested, to help it move rapidly into the world family of nations. “This does not mean a total change in culture, religion or social mores, but rather a more transparent set of policies and behavior pattern,” he said.
