Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

Saudi Prince in US to Discuss Politics and Business

Politics, , , ,
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud at the Royal Court Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has arrived in the United States to conduct a tour to strengthen not only business ties but also political ties with the US.

This is the Crown Prince’s second visit to the US. It begins with a stop at the White House for a meeting with US President Donald Trump. Trump has been working since his inauguration to strengthen the relationship between the two countries.“

Saudi Arabia was the first foreign country Trump visited after taking office, traveling to the kingdom in May and signing memorandums and agreements for defense spending that totaled about $110 billion,” according to Bloomberg.

The US and Saudi Arabia have been allies for 75 years, according to the Brookings Institute. During that time, they have worked “closely together” and have also at times been “estranged,” said Brookings.

Forbes said that the two leaders will most likely be discussing a reinstatement of sanctions against Iran; Saudi’s protracted war in Yemen; and the kingdom’s wish to buy at least one additional nuclear power plant and what role the US government will play in allowing a company like GE to construct it.“

Other issues that may come up would include the disagreement between Qatar on one hand and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt on the other as well as the U.S. decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem,” said Forbes.

Bloomberg also said that the Crown Prince will be meeting top executives to discuss business deals. He is on schedule to meet the heads of Apple Inc., Google, and:

• Uber
• Executives from the film industry
• Oil Services Companies
• Amazon
• GE
• NYSE

GE and Saudi Arabia Forge $15 Billion in Deals

Investments, , ,

In the wake of President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, General Electric announced it will sign $15 million worth of business deals to help diversify the Kingdom’s economy away from oil.

GE announced last week at a conference of senior US business executives with their Saudi counterparts its intention to deal with the desert Kingdom to help it diversify.

The agreements are worth about $7 billion in goods and services from GE itself. The range from utilities to healthcare; the oil industry, mining, and natural gas. Some of the deals are still in the form of memos and will need further negotiations to come to fruition.

One of the GE projects will guide power manufacture in Saudi Arabia to become more efficient and also offer digital technology to the operations at Saudi Aramco. The hope is that this project will ultimately create $4 billion in annual productivity increases at Aramco. It also hopes to cooperate in training and medical research.

Saudi Billionaire Buys Shares in Twitter

Communications, Investments, , , , , ,

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, active Saudi global investor, has just become part owner of the

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal

famous micro-blogging website Twitter for $300 million.

Breaking Into Global Communications

Alwaleed is one of the Saudi King’s nephews was estimated to be worth at least $19 billion and is already has a 7% stake in News Corps and is considering beginning his own cable news channel.

It is interesting to note that Twitter was one of the major tools used for communications between the protestors during the famed Arab Spring revolts a year ago, including violence which posed a threat to the ruling family of Saudi Arabia. The revolt was quelled after the kingdom proposed a $130 billion social spending package.

Months of Negotiations

The purchase of Twitter came after months of intense negotiations between Twitter and the Prince and his Kingdom Holding Company investment firm.

The investment transaction was what is known as a secondary transaction, which means that the shares that Alwaleed and his Kingdom Holding Company purchased were from shareholders already invested in Twitter, and not a direct investment in the company.

Owns Four Percent of Twitter

Chief executive of Twitter Dick Costolo said that the company is valued at about $8 billon in the secondary markets as of October, making Alwaleed’s investment worth about 4 percent of the company.

The co-founder of Social Media, a firm specializing in analysis and advice, Bernhard Warner said,

“The Arab world, of course, knows full well the value of Twitter. In the past year, it has been a force in politics, in regime change, so there is not a single person in that region in a position of influence who is not following the increasing power of Twitter.”

“(Alwaleed) must see Twitter as something that is going to be a really powerful broadcast channel,” he said, and added that the Saudis got into the internet craze relatively late, which has been a bit of a problem, and it could still be “kind of late” again to this game.