♪ bring on tomorrow and show me the sun we'll live it together the sun we'll live it together 'cause you are the one ♪ -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com are the one ♪ i'm zain verjee at cnn in london. here are the headlines. european leaders have agreed to a deal in brussels to lend greece more money and bolster its economy, but the greeks will need to make painful economic cuts to qualify. the austerity program of tax increases, pay and spending cuts have greek unions up in arms. they've called for a general strike on monday and tds, before wednesday's parliamentary vote on the economic aus taryn plan. syrian troops amassing near

the country's border with turkey, the latest move to crush anti-government protests. tanks have surrounded a village which has become a safe haven for syrian refugees. after months of high oil prices, some of the world's biggest oil-consuming countries are releasing 60 million barrels of oil onto the markets. oil prices fell to a four-month low on the news. u.s. president barack obama is making the rounds to explain his plan to withdraw troops from afghanistan. he spoke to soldiers in fort drum on thursday and met with families who lost loved ones in the war. the the plan calls for 30,000 troops to be sent home. i'm zain verjee in london. world business today starts now. good morning from cnn london. happy friday to you.

i'm nina desantos. good afternoon from cnn hong kong. i'm andrew stevens. you're watching "world business today." there's friction with opec. prada has more style than substance with a stock market debut that disappoints. sunny side up. from the paris air show we'll meet the pair nearing solar plane pilots. first up, let's take a look at the markets, asian stocks had a pretty good day on the hole on the back of hopes that the greek debt crisis could be nearing a resolution, also hopes that chinese inflation is now under control. it was a pretty positive open here in europe as well. for the most part the indices kicking things off with gains in excess of 1% for this final trading day of the week. let's go straight to the numbers. greek hopes definitely powering things ahead. some of these markets were down

in excess of 2% yesterday. most notably the kec 40. it's rebounding the most currently up by 1.5%. interesting, nina. greek helping the mood in asia. the gains across the board were being driven by the chinese premier win you bow. he says by the end of the year china will have beaten inflakes. he wrote in today's "final times" that he was, quote, confident prices will be firmly under control this year. he goes on to say that he has complete faith in china's on going economic prowess. inflation fears in china have been one of the key concerns for investors around the world this year. beijing has raised interest rates four times since this year. ranked the bank reserve requirements 12 times to try to dampen rising prices. inflation, you'll remember, hitting a 34-month high of 5.5%

in may. analysts say it may go higher before it starts coming down again. certainly investors today are breathing a sigh of relief on the inflation front. look at the shanghai composite jumping more than 2% at one stage today. it also produced a knock-on effect pretty much around this region. the hong kong hang seng index up by 2%. the nikkei climbing by almost 1%. stocks in sydney closing up by .2%. also today, prada making its trading debut. we'll have a look at that in just a moment nina. that's it for those markets already traded. let's take a look ahead at the start of trade in the united states. here is how things stand in pre market action, a pretty positive sentiment across the board, mirroring the kind of gains in europe, nasdaq up by .6%. the price of oil is

rebounding today after a hefty fall. u.s. crude futures hit a four-month low on thursday on the news that several of the world's largest oil consumers would release 60 million barrels into the market. opec members insist there is no shorta shortage. nevertheless, the price is on the rise, up by more than 1%, it has fallen back, up by almost a third of 1% at just over $91 a barrel. it wasn't that long ago when it was over $100 a barrel. the price might be rebounding burks still has a long way to go before it reaches the highs we saw earlier this year. take a look at the graph here. this is where the price of oil is coming from. it sank as low as $89.69 a barrel in interday trade yesterday, settling at $91.02 at

the close. that's a slide of 4.6%. the extra oil should be coming onto the market towards the end of next year, released at a rate of 2 million barrels a day. the iea says each country will release according to its consumption. european nations will open the valves for about 30% and japan and south korea will supply the remaining 20% or about 10 million barrels. nina. >> andrew, it's only the third time members of the iea have tapped the strategic reserveless. they did it twice, once during the gulf war and once again during hurricane katrina. the market intervention comes at a time when spare oil capacity is in short supply and all of that is within opec.

saudi arabia has supplied one to make up for libya's shortfall. cue wait and the united arab emirates are thought to have around half a million barrels. with libya's war months old, the question is why now? earlier this month opec ministers agreed to disagree on raising their own production can quo quotas. that quota is currently 24.84 million barrels of oil a day since back in december 2008. if you actually factor in the likes of iraq, as you can see here, out put is quite a bit steeper than that, currently over 29 million barrels. last month when opec did not act and, of course, with worldwide strox become depleted, it was time for the iea to act as its head tells us here. >> we've been watching the market very carefully. we watch it all the time, but

particularly carefully since the libyan disruption began in february. and over time, we've seen our stocks have come down more and more. basically over 130 million barrels has been lost from the market since this disruption began, and as we're going into the summer season where we expect naturally demand would increase, we believe that there's a potential for a serious disruption of the market. according to our rules, we can act on the basis of a potential for disruption of the market. >> head of the iea there. let's get a little more on this. we're just by kristoff barrett from london. listening to the head of the iea talking about the shortfall left by libya, this 60 million barrels is quite a small amount if you look at total consumption. it would mean about 17 hours' worth of oil consumption, that

60 million barrels. what do you think the iea is trying to achieve here? >> it is actually a small amount of oil, but it is all of very good quality. one of the main problem of the market now is not a lack of crude oil, it's a lack of sweet and light crude oil. i think by releasing stocks, the iea will make available more light and sweet crude oil which is the oil that the refiners need now. >> do you think that sharp fall in oil prices yesterday was justified by this move? >> i think that the prices have started to come down before the move. if you look at the price movement in the morning, they lost roughly $4 to $5 a barrel. prices were on the way down. i think what the iea did accent ated the move down of prices. i think right now if you look at supply-demand balances, after a short-term problem, it looks

like it's going to be more relaxed in the future and, in fact, there is room for prices to go further down. >> do you have now a view on where prices are likely to settle in this current economic climate? >> i'm not sure that the movement will change our forecast, but we have now oil prices going to $97 per barrel in the third quarter and $92 in the fourth quarter. that would be justified by slowing demand, slow economic development and the impact on high prices on oil demand. >> i just want to come back to that fact that oil prices were already falling before this decision was taken and announced by the iea. are they being a little bit behind the curve here? >> it's difficult to tell. i think what they are trying to do, it's very short-term intervention on the market. i think prices were already falling because if you look at all the indication for oil

demand or the indication for economic growth, they have a strong impact on the perception the market has on the coming balances. it looks like, frankly, the balances were being more relaxed in the coming days, coming weeks. >> just finally, on the political front here, opec last month were divided on whether to increase production. in the end they didn't increase production. this move by the iea, is that likely to have any impact on opec's future deliberations on oil? >> i'm not sure. if you look at the result of opec meetings, actually, they agree not to agree on production targets. basically it means that some country that could increase production are going to do so, in particular, saudi arabia and kuwait, for example. i don't think what the iea did will have impact on saudi policy or kuwaiti policy. it's more complementary policy. >> christoph barrett at credit

agrico. thanks for joining us. there's a word of agreement on new greek austerity cuts, but the question is with the protests currently going on in athens, will they be putting a dampener on the deal? we'll have more on that coming up on "world business today."

from cnn london and hong kong. welcome back. you're watching "world business today." code red, that's how the european central bank president described the continent's current debt crisis. finding a solution to this kind of problem is the top priority at a meeting of european union leaders this friday in brussels. heads of state are trying to hammer out an agreement on a second bailout. one point everybody seems to

agree on at the moment is ecb president's own assessment of the core problem. >> the most serious threat stems from the interplay between the vulnerabilities of public finances in certain eu member states and the banking system with potential contagion effects across the union and beyond. >> a solution may be difficult to come by. police used teargas to break up huge rallies in athens early on wednesday, this as thousands protested against the as stairity cuts there. the greek parliament is set to vote on those cuts next week. unions are calling for a two-day general strike. the late word from brussels is european finance officials have reached a deal calling for billions in cuts.

journalist linda lapapoolo joins us from london. this has been going on for days, weeks, years. is there an end in sight? >> it will all depend on what's next week and whether the new austerity measures are voted in. this is a very big deal here. people have been protesting against these measures for a long time. they say, we've had a bailout last year. we're talking about a new one. new measures are coming in. is there an end to this. what they've done is they've been taking to the streets for a long time. we've had people camped out outside parliament at a square for over four months now. they're saying the time of this crucial vote next week they will be there in the thousands. they plan on forming a human chain to surround the parliament building and that way show their disapproval of the measures. the unions have also called a 48-hour strike to coincide with

the vote showing that way their own disapproval of what is going on. the opposition for the first time is leading the polls, for the first time in over two years. since this government has been in power. so over all the feeling in greece is they don't want these measures to go through. they want to show that they don't want these measures to go through and this is also voiced in some of the politicians which is probably where we're likely to see -- we know at least one leading party mp has said he will vote against the measures. the government only has a small majority in parliament, 155 in a 300-seat parliament. so this vote certainly seems to have quite a lot of disapproval from different people across greece. >> and, of course, the kind of message we're getting from inside the eu is they don't just want to see the ruling party agree with their slim majority, but they want to see other

parties vote for it as well. is that really a realistic possibility next week? >> well, if the confidence vote that we had earlier this week is anything to go by, the answer would be no, simply because out of the 300-seat parliament, 155 people, only the ruling party mps gave a vote to the prime minister and parliament following a reshuffle. the probability of that happening next week is extremely slim. >> okay. many thanks as always. andrew. let's take a look at some of the other top business stories this hour. washington's debt crisis looked even further from a solution late on thursday as one of the key negotiators walked out. house majority leader republican eric cantor abandoned the talks saying differences with democrats over tax issues can't be resolved. he called on president obama to

get personally involved in the deal-making. democratic vice president joe biden, meanwhile, has been leading the bipartisan negotiations aimed at reaching a deal to raise the debt limit. u.s. treasury officials say if the limit isn't raised by august 2, the nation won't be able to pay back its bills. the founder and ceo of video rental service netflix has joined facebook's board of directors. reid hastings says facebook is a pioneer. facebook founder mark zuckerberg says netflix has transformed the ways people watch television and movies. netflix's newest offering is streaming movies and video games that subscribers can ready access online. it appears the final word has not been written on harry potter after all. the boy wizard is going online. author j.k. rowling announced a new website in london. it's called pottermore.com and

it allows fans to access an ebook series. she says the site will feature additions to the stories and illustrations. it will be the exclusive sales channel for the ebooks. flying too close to the sun cost the mick cal ith ras his wings. with jet fuel prices rising, will the airline industry hook its future on the power of sunshine? the shape of wings to come, just ahead.

welcome back. you're watching "world business today." airbus is flying high at the paris air show leaving boeing on the tarmac a day after announcing indian airlines is buying 180 of its a-320 neo jets. airbus trumped that on thursday with a sale of 200 of the fuel-efficient jets to air asia. in the meantime boeing is still trying to decide whether to build a new more fuel efficient narrow-bodied plane or modify a current existing model. analysts say boeing show in paris may hasten the decision. airbus is reporting sales of some 730 jets with a list price

of just over $72 billion. boeing for its part says it sold 138 planes, mostly expensive wide bodies with a total list price of less than $22 billion. airbus's new planes may be more fuel efficient but they'll still be no match for solar power. the solar impulse, a new plane fueled by the sun has made its debut at the paris air show. its designers told our jim bolduan, it could transform the entire airline industry. >> it's fully experimental and we never thought we could fly internationally with this airplane because in some ways it's a test bench. it flew so well that we accepted the invitation of brussels and we accepted the invitation to present this airplane in paris.

>> this airplane really wants to demonstrate what we can achieve with the technologies of today in terms of energy savings, in terms of renewable energy. when an airplane can fly with no fuel, it's a really good message to encourage people to use the same clean tech for cards, heating systems, lighting, construction of houses. it's an encouragement to pioneering spirit in the energy and technological world. >> is it not a flight of fancy? we've seen many airplanes over the years that it's a dream of somebody. but the reality is, what can it teach us? >> it can teach you you can achieve so-called impossible things with renewable energies. we need to save our natural resources. we need to plan the after-fuel future. we need to create jobs. we need to run the economy to

have good growth with the clean tech and at the same time have a reduced impact on the environment. so those are challenges we have to address. you see, pioneering spirit is something our world desperately needs. >> as the pilot, what was it like to fly this? it must be an extraordinary feeling. it's the size of an a-340 wing span with a power of what, a scooter or lawn mower? >> it makes us -- makes me very close to nature. but first, during the day i can fly and i can collect even more energy that's used during the flight, flight from brussels to paris, if i would have more batteries, i could take this energy and give it to the grid. >> this kind of plane obviously is never going to fly passengers or am i just being one of those negative people? >> when charles lindbergh crossed the atlantic he was alone on board and the plane was full of gasoline, and everybody thought, if we want to fly new

york-paris, we have to become pilots ourself. 25 years later there were 200 people in the airplanes. so solar impulse is full of batteries, just one pilot on board. who knows what's going to happen in the future? >> breaking the mold indeed. you're watching "world business today." we're live on cnn. we'll be back after this. i realized i needed an aarp... medicare supplement insurance card, too. medicare is one of the great things about turning 65, but it doesn't cover everything. in fact, it only pays up to 80% of your part b expenses. if you're already on or eligible for medicare, call now to find out how an aarp... medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company, helps cover some of the medical expenses... not paid by medicare part b. that can save you from paying up to thousands of dollars... out of your own pocket. these are the only medicare supplement insurance plans... exclusively endorsed by aarp. when you call now, you'll get this free information kit...

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from cnn london, i'm nina dos santos. >> i'm andrew stevens at cnn hong kong. you're watching "world business today." straight back to our top

story. the price of oil is rebounding after a big slide on thursday. the price of crude fell by more than 4.5% after the iea announced it was releasing 60 million barrels onto the market. felicia taylor unravels it all. >> what is the strategic petroleum reserve? it sits along the coastline of the gulf of mexico. in these huge underground salt caverns. the smallest of these storage bins is about 2,000 feet deep. for a little perspective, that's deep enough to lodge two eiffel towers end to end. it is the most cost effective way to store the oil for a long period of time. it's also the most environmentally secure. these salt walls are self healing. should there be a crack, the wall instantly repairs itself. the temperature difference keeps the crude constantly circulating and that maintains the oil quality for a long period of time. now, there are four of them.

the bryan mound, big hill, west hatbury and buy you chalk tao. each has a different capacity. in total there are 727 million barrels stored. that represents less than 90 days of the average american consumption. it does, however, make up the largest supply of emergency crude oil. the 1973-'74 oil embargo is when many of the arab nations cut off shipments to the united states. that prompted the government under president ford to establish the tra steejic oil reserve. strategic is exactly what it means, only to be tapped in times of emergency. only the president of the u.s. can make that decision to withdraw crude. it's then distributed by competitive sale in the open market. the first time this happened was during operation desert storm back in 1991. in 2001 president bush actually ordered to up the ante and increase the amount of oil stored to represent capacity of more than 700 million barrels.

the second emergency drawdown happened after hurricane katrina in 19 in 2005. the united states has the most reserves with 727 million barrels. japan is second with 362 million followed by germany, france, south korea and finally spain with 54 million barrels. >> felicia taylor reporting on where the oil is stored. now, after months of anticipation, shares of prada have entered their first day solve trading on the hong kong stock exchange. luxury goods demand has rocketed mainly from china. our asia business analyst has been following the story. a lot of people have been watching to see how prada would do. how was it? >> the share price ended pretty much flat unfortunately, rising

just .25%. right after the opening ceremony this morning, it did gain 1.25% in the first hour, but lost all of that by the close. today's performance was actually better than what analysts were expecting. most thought share price would plunge because of negative factors around the world. those are things like a potential greek default. also the glum outlook from u.s. fed chair ben bernanke as well as higher inflation in china and india. all these have been pulling the hong kong stock exchange down. we're actually in our fifth week of declines, down nearly 11% since mid april when we saw the hang seng near its high for the year. it's basically bad timing for prada's debut. earlier i spoke with andrew sullivan, director of trading at osk in hong kong. he said no matter how prada would have performed today, it will still probably get better. >> -- a name that people like, a

business they can understand by walking down the high street. but, if you're getting a lot of bad macro news, then they just become more cautious with their money, as simple as that. but with prada, i think, again, it's got a good story. it's a business that people understand. so the likelihood is that there will be a lot of people in it for the long term because they understand the business. >> and long term there being the key to investor profits. looking ahead the hong kong stock exchange says it has about 90 more companies on the ipo list this year. if global markets recover, it will be a better time for companies to list. if not, they may want to postpone that. >> absolutely, ramy. if you look at some of the performances, they've been pretty miserable, the average down about 15-odd percent. prada was five times oversubscribed when it went to potential shareholders. five times sounds quite good, but not really here in hong

kong, is it? >> not really. if you compare it to previous ipos, locks see 10 was oversubscribed 159 times, that oversubscription is one side of investor demand. investor hope for growth is the other. let me pull up this chart about that. basically investors are expecting prada to make more money than other listed luxury brands. looking at price-to-earnings ratio, prada is actually trading at 23 times its 2011 earnings. the industry average is around 19 times. lvmh is just under that at about 18.5. also for hugo boss, that's about 17. prada is trading as a premium. as for today's performance, andrew sullivan advices hanging on to prada stock for the long term. andrew. >> i love the fact prada trading at a premium. we all love premium in asia.

ramy, thank you so much. ramy inocencio, asia business analyst. nina? video game sales in the u.s. fell slightly but still worth a healthy $13.6 billion and now projected to hit $17 billion by 2015. one company that's positioning itself to take advantage of that kind of growth is the french game maker ub soft, a business that got its start in the most unlikely place. jim bittermann has the story from paris. >> reporter: just another day at the office if your office happens to be at computer game maker ubisoft and if you're developing its latest video game, "just dance 2." if you want to evaluate the real gamer experience, you have to just dance, too. it's one of the most recent games in development, a company which the french like to point to as their own version of apple or microsoft, mainly because of

its origins. the company was founded by five brothers from an obscure town in britain who inherited a farm supply business which morphed into a mail order company that morphed into a line of video games. they were part of the $50 billion a year video game industry. especially because of gaming hits like "assassins creed" which sold nearly 30 million units worldwide and is likely to go higher when the fourth sequel comes out this fall. the head of the company believes being in france where other companies are not has helped the company go. >> because there are great schools in france, we were able to recruit very talented people. when you start your company and you go l.a., there are lots of talented people but there are so many great companies there, it's very difficult when you're a small company to find the right people. >> reporter: today ubisoft is no longer small, employing 4,000

people, primarily in france and canada and the company is regularly top ten in sales. to build a new game, the programmers work in teams starting with perhaps 70 people but expanding to as many as 500 programmers who each day contribute bits and pieces of the game to a central server. then the next day begins with an an assessment of how far the game has gotten and how much more needs to be done. elaborate games can take two or three years of development. the ceo believes ubisoft which is marking the 25th anniversary this year was very lucky to have been growing at the same time as global connections and global markets were developing. >> that made a big difference because this worldwide open market is something that is giving anybody in the world a chance to succeed, and that i think is the key of what has been the growth in the last decades, and that we need to

preserve. >> reporter: ubisoft ceo says he still plays games himself and has become an armcha chair sighl gist. >> in fact, we have to fulfill -- if you can fulfill them in the virtual world on top of real world you actually are in a better shape in your day to day life. >> reporter: the gamers may live in a virtual world, but he and his brothers are making real world money. jim bittermann, cnn paris. great stuff. now, don't forget, if you want to comment on any of the stories you've seen on the show this day, make sure you join us and the whole team on our facebook page. all you have to do is go to

facebook.com/cnnwbt and let us know your thoughts. nina? >> that's about it for this edition of "world business today." i'm nina dos santos in london. >> i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. we've got for you -- first we'll be back at 2:00 p.m. london time, that's 9:00 p.m. in hong kong. "marketplace middle east" is just ahead.

any questions? no. you know... ♪ we're not magicians ♪ we can't read your mind ♪ ♪ read your mind ♪ we need your questions ♪ each and every kind ♪ every kind

♪ will this react with my other medicine? ♪ ♪ hey, what are all these tests even for? ♪ ♪ questions are the answer ♪ yeah ♪ oh this week on ""marketplace middle east"," on the road to getting an upgrade, the uea in qatar to go to emerging market status by the end of the year. what will that really mean? plus a synchronized effort is central bank head describes giving aid to the arab spring. process for change. we take a closer look at how the

kingdom of saudi arabia is moving away from oil to secure more jobs for saudi nationals. it was a roller coaster ride on the golf markets as investors awaited a decision by msci to up great the uae in qatar to emerging market status. in the end the financial data provider decided to delay the decision until the end of the year due to a lack of data. why is the upgrade so important. leony licanti has the story. >> when you think of frontier markets, you may think of the wild west. to put it basically, economies progress from frontier markets to emerging markets, all the way up to developed markets, like the g-8 countries, for instance. the best way to illustrate this is to look at some examples. frontier markets, for instance, include the likes of bangladesh and vietnam in asia, serbia and bulgaria in europe, for example.

also in this category, many of the gulf arab countries. that may come as a surprise because these countries are so rich in oil and gas reserves. the main reason they're included in the frontier markets, according to analysts, is because foreign investors have limited access to these markets. so there's questions about transparency and doing business in these countries. incidentally saudi arabia which is the middle east's largest economy is not categorized by msci because of the way information is provided on its markets. now, how does a frontier market get upgraded to an emerging market? there are a number of factors involved. for instance, a market that is emerging has to show a marked increase in the size and liquidity of its market. it also has to have greater accessibility. emerging economies demonstrate more openness to foreign ownership. some examples of these type of markets, they include all the

bric countries, brazil, russia, china, south africa. why are these categories so important? investment managers all over the world look to the msci for guidance. they see the frontier markets as riskier places to put their money, so they're more likely to invest in countries labeled as emerging markets. in the case of the middle east, of course, you may not see that change happen overnight. it is a volatile time in the region, and many fund managers say they're just hanging on to their cash for the time being. >> as the focal point for the global economy shifts towards the emerging markets, israel, the only middle eastern country with developed nation status is holding its own in an ever-changing region despite diminished growth during the economic crisis, the country averaged just over 4% growth for the past five years. i asked stanley fisher, the governor of the bank of israel about the state of israel's economy. >> we've seen almost every part

of aggregate demand going up, in particular the parts that are pleasing are that domestic investment, israeli firms are investing in physical capital at an increasingly rapid rate. that's very promising for the future. and then exports have done very well despite a considerable appreciation of the shake kel. the only thing that held us back a little bit in the first quarter of 2011 was that the government wasn't spending as much as we had expected. but that's something which has also its benefits if the rest of the economy is doing well. >> i don't want to be cliche, but this is a critical window for governments like egypt and tunisia in transition after the arab up rice sings. what is the right strategy to provide the aid in a short period of time to stabilize the situation and manage expectations in countries like egypt and tunisia? >> i think there will be a significant amount of aid. the difficult question will be how to coordinate that so that a

country like egypt doesn't have to deal with visiting economic experts every morning instead of getting on with actually running the economy. so the outside world has to figure out a coordinating mek sichl for providing assistance to these countries and simply has to avoid causing tripping over each other in rushing to give aid. we -- the world needs to give it in a coordinated dpags that the countries can deal with. >> once again, stanley fisher formerly of the international monetary fund. this week the former president of tunisia, ben ali, was convicted in ab sentence yeah by tune eggs court on corruption charges. he and his wife were sentenced to 35 years in prison and slapped with a $65 million fine. uea central bank has ordered banks and financial institutions to freeze the assets of 19

libyan individuals or companies. this month the country became the second arab state after qatar to recognize the libyan rebels as a legitimate representative of the libian people. after a number of protests inspired by the arab king, despite the monarch giving up power to the government, he will still maintain security over the army and religion. they have announced they're planning to boycott next month's planned referendum over the reforms. up next, expanding a different kingdom. how saudi arabia is diversifying its economy in a bid to create new job opportunities for his nationals. eft behind? [ female announcer ] new purifying facial cleanser from neutrogena naturals. removes 99% of dirt and toxins without dyes, parabens, or harsh sulfates. so skin feels pure and healthy. [ female announcer ] new from neutrogena naturals.

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container into saudi's port. it fights to diversify its economy and minimize its dependence on oil. the kingdom is also pursuing another project alongside diversification, the process of getting saudis into the workplace. saudi arabia has average age of just 25. providing more opportunities is becoming an increasing opportunity. jim bolduan traveled to find out how companies are helping saudi arabia with its very big challenge. >> reporter: it's not often korean drums rubble into the saudi arabia night air. korean giant samsung is opening its new $100 million engineering training park in eastern saudi arabia. saudi arabia's petrochemical region is one of samsung engineering's biggest markets.

the new engineering center is one big way the company will increase the number of saudis it hires and, therefore, bring in fewer koreans and indians. >> at this time saudi engineers is only 180. this some 20% of our workforce. i think that's not enough. we have to train them and share our experience. >> reporter: six years ago the saudi government initiated so-called saudiization, a push for private firms to hire more of the country's growing number of recent graduates and, therefore, reduce the unemployment rate. given all the unrest in the middle east, it has a new 'em po tus. the process of saudiization is more than getting foreign companies to higher workers, also to get local companies to hire local workers and compete

for very big and very complicated contracts. mis makes massive towers for the gas industry, top top out at 100 meters and 1500 tons. the goal is to take the workforce from 20% saudi to 60% in five years. and it's not just about graduates from universities. >> we have developed an in-house training program for training welders, electricians, machinists to be able to create more opportunities for the young saudis. in addition to the programs that we have with universities, with technical colleges here in the eastern province. >> reporter: u.s. construction and energy firm bechtel has been in eastern saudi arabia for 35 years and already has a program to train saudi engineers. >> it's turning out very well. unfortunately some of these young engineers after finishing the two-year program go and work

for the likes of ram co-however, i look at it in a way we've benefited the kingdom, done our moral obligation. >> reporter: among a quarter of the population is made up of foreign workers, encouraged to come here to work while saudis enjoyed the oil boom. now the kingdom says it might use a color-coded system to highlight those who don't hire soud days. a company like samsung may get a green light. those who don't meet the rules could get a yellow or red light. they would find doing business in saudi arabia extremely restricted. jim would en for "marketplace middle east," jabal industrial city, saudi arabia. let's take a look at some of the other news hitting the headlines, looking for lost billions, iraqi's parliament is asking the yunltd nations to help track down $17 billion of ar rick ka oil money. in a letter to the un, the government states the missing

money was stolen from the development fund of iraq after the 2003 u.s. invasion. regional carrier qatar airways made a splash at the paris air show by announcing an order a deal worth $1.7 billion at list prices. visit our website, cnn come/mme or send comments to mme@cnn.com. wu can check out arabic.cnn.com/mme. that's it for this edition of cnn "marketplace middle east." i'm john deaf fair yas. thanks for watching. we'll see you next week.