RIYADH, 6 July 2004 — A senior executive of the Saudi Committee for the Development of International Trade (CIT) has sought to reassure Western business executives that safeguarding their interests is part of the Kingdom’s battle against terror.
“We are painfully aware of the fact that these terrorists are targeting Western expatriates and businessmen from the US and other Western countries. But we stand by them in this joint fight against terrorism,” said Omar A. Bahlaiwa, CIT’s secretary-general.
Bahlaiwa said he would like the international business community to remember that the Kingdom continues to enjoy political and economic stability and remains a lucrative market despite the terrorist attacks. “The fact that these attacks are taking place all over the world shows that terrorism has become a global phenomenon and is not confined to any particular country,” Bahlaiwa said.
He stressed the need for an open dialogue to address the mutual concerns of the business community on both sides. This was the only way forward. Retreat in the face of terrorism would send a wrong message to the terrorists, he said. Potential investors “should remember that some multi-billion dollar contracts are in the pipeline over the coming years up to 2020. We need the expertise of our trading partners to tap this huge potential in our mutual interest,” he said.
The CIT chief said the presence of eight million expatriates in the Kingdom, some of whom have been resident for over 30 years, was “strong evidence” of the Kingdom’s respect for all faiths. “We feel hurt by these senseless attacks on the life and property of some expatriates. These deviants do not represent Saudi society, which rejects acts of violence in no uncertain terms,” he said.
Bahlaiwa said worldwide broadcasts of the acts of violence and lawlessness in Palestine and Iraq had created a wrong impression in the minds of Western audiences, who now tended to associate such images with Saudi Arabia too. “Not only is the situation under control thanks to the firm measures taken by the security forces, but the Kingdom, as the world’s largest oil producer, is playing a responsible role by controlling oil prices,” he insisted.
Meanwhile, Tanya Hsu, a senior analyst at the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, and Hassan Elkhalil, a US immigration lawyer, have said that new US visa procedures have created “a substantial fall-off” of Saudi visitors to the United States.
But new “perceptual barriers” that delay or prevent Saudis from coming into the United States were even more harmful to the long-term interests of the United States, they said in a study.
“Long lines at the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, waiting four to six weeks to obtain a visa, personal slights and ill-treatment at US airports, and safety concerns directly undermine ongoing trade, bilateral finance and cultural exchanges,” the study said. “However inconvenient this is for the Saudis, Americans interested in revitalizing longstanding service export relationships are also highly concerned,” it said.
According to the authors, this year 124,000 US service and manufacturing jobs will be directly related to US-Saudi trade.
The institute forecasts that the worst-case loss in travel related services, education and tourism revenue could reach $4.7 billion between 2002-2011.
Temporary visitors from Saudi Arabia grew on average two percent per year in the 1980s and 1990s. The 2002 visitor decline reversed a stable and reliable growth trend. “If this new trend were to be reinforced by a combination of waning demand, fear of travel in the United States and truly restrictive permanent US visa procedures, we could anticipate a continued 11 percent average annual growth rate in Saudi visitors over the next decade. This would reduce total Saudi visits from 30 million in 2002 to 10 million by the year 2011,” the study said.
