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March, 2005
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Saudi Arabia Prince meets Indian President

      New Delhi: The Prince of Saudi Arabia, Al Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz al Saud, the richest man in the Islamic world, in India to explore investment opportunities in the growing hotel industry, called on Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in New Delhi on Tuesday. Al Saud, one of the nephews of King Fahd and a successful businessman, is the sponsor of Saudi Arabia's tallest building, Riyadh's Kingdom Centre. Al Saud, who is in India after his brief stopover in Pakistan, will visit northern Agra city, which houses the world famous Taj Mahal, before returning home. He is expected to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram and tourism minister Renuka Choudhary on the investments in hotel sector.

     The visit of the Saudi prince comes more than two months after India and Saudi Arabia expressed their desire to invest in each other's petroleum sectors and to devise mechanisms to ensure energy security, oil price stability and sustained supplies in the Asian region. "Opportunities exist to strengthen ties in investment between India and Saudi Arabia," Ali Al Naimi, the Gulf country's oil minister, had told reporters then before attending the first roundtable of Asian oil buyers and sellers. Al Naimi said Saudi Arabia, which has 30-year oil supply contracts with several countries, was keen on entering into a similar arrangement with India. "Our biggest concern is oil security and transportation," he noted. On the investment side, the visiting minister said opportunities existed for Saudi Arabian oil companies to invest in India's upstream, midstream and downstream projects, and to strengthen economic ties between the two countries.

     Today both Saudi Arabia and India are each other's major partners in trade, investment and joint ventures. The total volume of annual bilateral trade exceeds 5.1 billion dollars. Saudi Arabia's exports to India are worth more than 4.1 billion dollars with substantial oil exports and a steadily growing portion of non-oil exports. Indian companies too have responded very positively to the Kingdom's efforts to attract foreign investment. This is clearly evident from the fact that since the promulgation of new investment laws by the Saudi government in mid-2000, more than 58 licenses have been granted to Indian companies by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) for establishing Joint ventures or 100 percent Indian owned companies. These JVs or 100 percent foreign-owned companies are expected to bring around 358.04 million dollars worth of Indian investment in different sectors of Saudi economy such as petrochemicals, management and consultancy services, construction projects, telecommunications,information technology and pharmaceuticals to name a few.
-Mar 15, 2005

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