The impact of Europe's economic woes on Saudi Arabia will be “very limited” because the Kingdom has the “appropriate means” to guard against any financial shockwave, the Kingdom's Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf said. Leaders of the world's major economies met in the French Riviera Thursday to try to overcome a European sovereign debt crisis that threatens to drag the global economy into recession. “If there is a big decline in the economic conditions of Europe... it will affect all nations including the Kingdom to some degree, but I stress that the impact would be very limited because we have the appropriate means to limit the negative effect on the Kingdom's economy,” Al-Assaf told state news agency SPA in Cannes, France. “Now we are facing a new challenge, Europe, and the heaviest burden is on European nations, but the international community stands side by side with Europe and it prepared to support it via the IMF,” Al-Assaf said. He expressed hope that no setback would take place in any degree. Saudi Arabia plans to spend over $400 billion in the five years to 2013 on infrastructure and development projects. On the sidelines of a meeting of Gulf finance ministers in Abu Dhabi held recently, when asked whether Saudi Arabia was interested in investment opportunities in debt-stricken Europe, Al-Assaf was quoted as saying that “when it comes to investment of official resources, we are different from other countries because we don't invest long-term. We invest our surplus resources in semi-liquid assets with low risk. We don't invest them in direct investment. When it comes to the resources of our Funds, especially Public Investment Fund, we are continuing to focus on local investments.”
