RIYADH, 9 June 2005 — A senior official at the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry has said it is in the interest of the US not to misread the situation in the Kingdom in the context of insurgent violence in Iraq.
Omar Bahlaiwa, secretary-general of the Committee of International Trade (CIT), told Arab News that Chevron’s decision to invest $3.5 billion in the Kingdom’s petrochemical sector reflects the confidence of major US firms in the country’s political and economic stability and is the direct result of a recent Saudi delegation’s visit to the US.
Bahlaiwa said, “Neither the Saudis who were involved in the terrorist attacks in the US on Sept. 11, 2001, nor those who desecrated the Holy Qur’an at Guantanamo Bay represent the true faces of our societies. If anything, they represent sick and deviant minds.”
Bahlaiwa said the Saudi delegation’s visit to New York, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago and San Francisco was part of the Saudi initiative to have a “constructive engagement” with the US by offering $623 billion worth of investment opportunities in some of the Kingdom’s key sectors, including infrastructure, petrochemicals, natural gas, IT, tourism and education.
“Those trying to undermine Saudi-US relations should understand that Saudi Arabia is the US’s biggest trading partner in the Islamic world. Saudis have invested $500 billion in the US where 500,000 Saudis have either studied in the past or are studying now. It is thus in our mutual interest to strengthen relations in the interests of both economics as well as peace and security,” the CIT official said.
Another outcome of the Saudi delegation’s visit, according to Bahlaiwa, was the decision to conduct feasibility studies for identifying projects in Iraq which could be taken up by a consortium of Saudi-American firms.
