RIYADH, 17 March 2008 — Saudi Arabia and Germany are not expected to sign an agreement to avoid double taxation in the near future, as the Kingdom still needs to complete certain criteria legislated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), German Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Jurgen Krieghoff said here yesterday. “There have been negotiations for seven years and we are not, by far, at the end,” he said. “What we from the German side would like to see as a basis for the OECD agreement with some slight modifications. The Saudi side sees it in a different way.” Ambassador Krieghoff said he could not predict when exactly his government and Saudi Arabia would come to an agreement to avoid double taxation, but asserted that “it was not foreseeable.” Any agreement signed between an OECD member state and a third country must be within the framework of OECD regulations. Germany is a member state, along with 29 other nations.
Speaking at the Riyadh Chambers of Commerce and Industry on the occasion of the visit of Bavarian State Minister-President Günther Beckstein and his accompanying business delegation, the ambassador justified the long wait to receive a Shengen visa from the German Embassy. He said the normal process usually takes 14 days because by obtaining such a visa, information is passed to 13 EU member states. However, he added that within two years, the process would be shortened to 48 hours.
For his part, Bavarian State Minister-President Günther Beckstein said he hoped that more German small and medium enterprises would also invest in Saudi Arabia, adding that those companies could take advantage of Saudi Arabia’s second economic boom.
