RIYADH, 3 October 2006 — Saudi Arabia and Germany have set out a new broad vision of bilateral relationship, which, in fact, is the direct result of the progressively growing political and commercial contacts between the two nations. As part of this new vision, the two countries are all set to take many joint initiatives. The first one is a ministerial meeting entitled “Saudi-German Joint Economic Commission” to be held on Nov. 11 in which Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf, finance minister, will lead the Saudi delegation.
This was disclosed by German Ambassador Juergen Krieghoff in an interview on the occasion of his country’s national day. Ambassador Krieghoff said that the four-day ministerial meeting in the Saudi capital city would be chaired by Minister Michael Glos from the German side. To this end, he noted that Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal would visit Germany in November this year to hold talks with his German counterpart Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier on bilateral and international issues.
The ambassador said that the two foreign ministers had been holding political consultations very closely. He said, “Prince Saud and Dr. Steinmeier had met three times this year and the visit of the Saudi foreign minister to Germany in November will again bring the two ministers to the meeting table. Such frequent contacts, on such a high level, indicates the growing intimacy and identical approaches on a range of bilateral and regional issues.”
He said that the Saudi-German relations have grown from strength to strength during the last 75 years. Germany remains Saudi Arabia’s third biggest trading partner (not counting China’s and India’s huge oil imports).
German exports to Saudi 2005 amounted to over four billion euros and these exports mainly comprised cars, machines, medical equipment, while Saudi exports to Germany exceeded 1.3 billion euros. Hence, the two-way trade has been in the region of 5.5 billion euros annually.
“We foresee and seek to further solidify Saudi-EU relations, when Germany takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union from Jan. 2007,” said the diplomat adding that Germany will also have the presidency of G-8 group concurrently with the EU during the same period.
He said that that two-way trade had grown by 13 percent during the first six months of 2006 compared to the same period last year.
“The trade surged by 30 percent last year,” said the diplomat adding that the German mission would try to boost commercial links between the two countries further. He also called on the Saudi and the German companies to take initiatives to forge closer business contacts.
In this regard, the diplomat said that the embassy works closely with GESALO (Representative of German Economy in Riyadh) and SAGIA to increase trade and bilateral investment.
SAGIA also has an office in Frankfurt now, run by a Saudi lady, Dahlia Raheimy, who is fluent in German. Referring to the growing Saudi investment in Germany, he said that the investment relation between Riyadh and Berlin had been growing progressively. There are several big German companies, which have their direct or indirect presence in Saudi Arabia, whereas many Saudi companies like SABIC have their presence in Germany.
In the field of science and research, the ambassador said that the Saudi academic and research centers can have some sort of tie-ups with some premier German research institutes.
On the cultural front, Ambassador Krieghoff said, “There was a need to exert more efforts to boost cultural ties between the two nations. Several initiatives like painting exhibitions and exchange of cultural delegations to promote cultural relations can be jointly undertaken.”
He pointed out that about 80 Saudi students would go to Germany this year. Many of these students will go to pursue higher education in the field of medicine, while many others will enroll themselves on different courses at German academic institutions. Last year 50 Saudi government scholars were sent to study in Germany. They learned German language for two years before they were enrolled on different subjects in different German colleges and universities.
Asked about the problems faced by Saudi students in learning German language, he said that German is not a difficult language. “It is the mother tongue of 120 million people,” he said.
After Ramadan, the German Embassy will start German language classes again for Saudi and expatriate men and women. Interested persons can find information on our website www.riad.diplo.de about the classes. One can access German Foreign Ministry website on www.almania-info.diplo.de for more information about Germany.
