US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson assured Gulf investors on Monday that the United States will remain open to sovereign wealth funds and urged oil producers to open their energy sectors to foreign investment.
"As we seek to open new markets abroad, America will keep our markets open at home to investment from private firms and from sovereign wealth funds," Paulson said on the last stop of a Gulf tour.
"We reject measures that would isolate us from the world economy," he said in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, whose government-run fund manages assets estimated at up to 875 billion dollars. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority injected 7.5 billion dollars in capital in ailing US banking giant Citigroup last November, becoming one of the bank's biggest shareholders. The state-owned Kuwait Investment Authority has also pumped five billion dollars into Citigroup and Merrill Lynch.
Paulson acknowledged concerns in the region resulting from the Dubai Ports World debacle, when US congressional opposition forced the Dubai government operator to offload US operations acquired through its 2006 acquisition of P and O. "Some here worry about growing protectionist sentiment in the United States, and they also worry specifically that US sentiment towards Middle East investment has been permanently affected by the Dubai Ports World case."
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