Saudi Arabia To Invest In Ghana’s Oil Industry

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud The oil-rich Saudi Kingdom has expressed interest in investing in Ghana’s oil and gas industry. Ghana starts drilling oil commercially from 15th December 2010. The Crown Prince of the Saudi Kingdom gave hints of his country’s interest when he spoke to Citi News on the sidelines of the Gulf-Africa Investment Forum ongoing in Saudi Arabia. It is a platform for leaders of the two regions to engineer positive investments and economic cooperation. Ghana’s Vice President, John Mahama held meetings with Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud at the forum to discuss several investment and bilateral development matters. Prince Al-Saud told Citi News Reporter Richard Mensah that investing in Ghana’s oil and gas industry is an obvious consideration. “It was an open discussion with the Vice President and everything is on the table and I think we are proving our goodwill towards the Ghanaian people and the Ghanaian government by investing in Ghana even before discovery of oil. “Really, Ghana is witnessing a major renaissance and a boom in its economy and I think the leadership by the President and his Vice is moving Ghana in the right direction. We are very proud to be associated with Ghana.” The Saudi Prince is also the Chairman of Kingdom Holdings Company, a conglomerate of companies under the directorship of the Royal Kingdom. Prince Al-Saud already has some investments in Ghana such as the yet-to-be inaugurated Ambassador Hotel. He said Kingdom Holdings, which had available liquidity exceeding two million Saudi riyals as of 2009 will pump more money into Ghana’s economy. “As you know, we are building the biggest hotel in Ghana that will be opened hopefully in some months and we have invited officially Mr. Vice President to accompany the President to open the hotel hopefully sometime next year. “We have also discussed the potential of investing in Ghana in other projects and I found full cooperation by Mr. Vice President and hopefully we will be interacting more to have more projects in Ghana. We are very proud to be on board with Ghana as you see, it’s a rising star right now not only in West Africa but the whole Africa.”