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A-BCC hosts reception for Saudi Finance Minister

13 March 2009

An invited audience of over one hundred distinguished guests attended a special reception organised by the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce on the evening of 12 March for the Minister of Finance of Saudi Arabia H E Ibrahim Al-Assaf.

Also present was Dr Muhammad Al-Jasser, the new Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the country’s central bank.

Dr Afnan Al-Shuaiby, A-BCC Secretary General & CEO, Chairman Sir Roger Tomkys and members of the Chamber’s Board of Directors were joined by the Arab Ambassadors, various other diplomats and leading executives from the UK financial sector and business community for the reception held at the InterContinental Hotel, Park Lane.

In his brief opening remarks, Sir Roger stressed that the Chamber remained guided by the principle of “friendship through trade”, a motto of which it was very proud.

Dr Afnan said that the Chamber was deeply honoured that the Minister had been able to attend the reception despite his heavy schedule.   

She said that, despite the global downturn, “the Saudi economy remained exceptionally robust and continued to make progress with its economic diversification by maintaining high expenditure on infrastructure and sectors such as financial services, construction, transport, communications and petrochemicals”.

H E Ibrahim Al-Assaf warmly thanked the A-BCC for its valued work in promoting trade between Britain and the Arab world.

The Minister underlined Dr Afnan’s observations that the Saudi economy remained very strong and pointed to recent positive IMF forecasts. He also stressed that the Kingdom was ready to play its part to help revive the global economy in these challenging times.

The Saudi Finance Minister was in London heading a delegation from the Kingdom for talks of world finance ministers hosted by the British government in the run up to the G-20 summit scheduled to take place in April.