If U.S. Shuts Out Dubai, We'll Take Our Money Elsewhere
Where will the wealthy Arab emirates invest their tremendous oil profits, as they try and diversify into non-oil sectors? According to this editorial from the Khaleej Times of the United Arab Emirates, if Washington shows Dubai that its money is not welcome, others are 'only too willing' to accept it.
EDITORIAL
February 23, 2006
Khaleej Times - Original Article (English)
EVEN as
the world's attention is riveted on Dubai's ambitious and high profile $6.8
billion bid for U.K.-based ports operator, P&O, the Gulf investors are
making a big splash around the world, especially in Asian markets.
U.S.
interest groups may have gotten all worked up over the Dubai Ports World's
winning bid for P&O, which will allow Dubai and the United Arab Emirates to
control some of the most important ports in the world, including those in the United
States. But big markets elsewhere, such as the growing economies of China,
India and Far East, are only too willing to welcome investments from this part
of the world.
In fact,
according to the available economic statistics, Middle Eastern wealth, buoyed
by the recent upsurge in oil prices, is playing a crucial role in major markets
other than those in the West. And it isn't only major Middle Eastern companies
and investors, but also the region's governments that are looking to diversify financial
assets and investments into non-oil sectors. Hence the attention on Asian
markets, which are hungry for investment, even as they are linked to the reassuring
economic stability of the U.S. dollar, the currency of the global oil industry.
This is a
significant shift that could have important political and economic implications
in the years to come. Since, historically speaking, the West – the U.S.
and Europe - have always been a favorite destination for Gulf investments,
this shift of economic focus is remarkable, although not altogether so. After
all, post September 11, we are living in an altogether different world.