Arabs lost 2.5 trillion dollars from credit crunch: Kuwait

[giovonni]

Arabs lost 2.5 trillion dollars from credit crunch: Kuwait

Arab investors have lost 2.5 trillion dollars from the credit crunch, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah, whose country hosts an Arab economic summit next week, said on Friday.

"The Arab world has lost 2.5 trillion dollars in the past four months" as a result of the global financial crisis, Sheikh Mohammad told a press conference following a joint meeting of Arab foreign and finance ministers in Kuwait.

He also said that about 60 percent of development projects "have either been postponed or cancelled" by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states because of the global meltdown.

Arab leaders who hold their first ever economic summit on January 19-20 will discuss the impact of the worldwide economic meltdown on the 22 Arab countries.

The biggest loss was an estimated 40 percent drop in the value of Arab investments abroad, which previously totalled around 2.5 trillion dollars.

Falls on stock markets contributed more than 600 billion dollars to the losses, while Arab investors were further affected by a sharp decline in oil revenues, the declining value of property investments and other repercussions of the global downturn.

Next week's summit will also discuss the Gaza war but leaders are still intent on agreeing a joint response to the financial crisis.

original news item;
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.21a790b26de73c80e4048954b0b52ce 9.9d1&show_article=1

[Anchor]

We are seeing the the process play out, in which the economy as we know it is destroyed, and the wealth is spread around.

Normal people always suffer in all economic hard times, but I don't remember seeing the rich people loosing so much before.

It is interesting how its the super-rich people that are coping the losses.

A..

[Dantheman62]

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The Saudi investment company that bet big on now-ailing Citigroup and other major global companies said Tuesday it lost more than $8 billion in the last three months of 2008.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's Kingdom Holding Co. attributed the drop to losses stemming from the company's investments in capital markets, according to a statement posted on the Saudi Tadawul exchange's Web site.

Kingdom Holding said it lost 30.98 billion riyals ($8.26 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2008. That compares with a gain of 255.6 million riyals ($68.2 million) in the same period a year earlier.

"It's significant," said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at SABB, the HSBC Holdings PLC affiliate formerly known as Saudi British Bank. "I don't think that we have seen such a loss in the recent corporate history of Saudi Arabia."

Kingdom Holding was established in 1980 and initially focused on construction projects before evolving into one of the largest investment companies in the United States and elsewhere.

The firm invests in a number of well-known companies, such as Apple Inc. and News Corp.

A nephew of Saudi Arabia's king, Alwaleed, 52, is ranked as the world's 13th-richest person by Forbes magazine. He has recently taken a big hit in his holdings, however.

Dubai-based magazine Arabian Business reported last month that Alwaleed's net worth fell to $17.08 billion from $21 billion in 2007. The magazine, at the time, said he remained the world's richest Arab.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090120/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_saudi_alwaleed_earnings;_ylt=AjmvjleyTM3AnVSxTj MuAOGyBhIF