without having to deal with local taxes. we have an ambitious training program. one of the responses the sultan had until last year's, vens where young people were asking for more opportunities and more employment was a significant ramp up in education and training and so they are training young omanis to be a viable workforce and they have a workforce of young omanis who are the viable workforce. it does provide advantages there. as you know, they have wise and very stable leadership and they used those elements such as the free trade agreement to modernize their commercial legal infrastructure in ways that also make them an attractive location for investment so i think oman is a very welcoming country. people who live there enjoy living there and so companies like to put their people there in order to be able to put them

elsewhere in the gulf, but to know that they're in a safe, comfortable location which is what they find when they're in oman. let me stop there and answer any questions. >> thank you very much. our last speaker is ambassador tuller of kuwait. >> acres appreciate the opportunity to address this topic on diversifying away from hydrocarbo hydrocarbons. the markets that know the kuwaiti markets best have been in the hydrocarbon sector in the defense field. they know kuwait well and have done well and their contributions and involvement have contributed measurably to the prosperity that kuwait enjoys today. just as many kuwaitis recognize that the sustainability will depend on their ability to diversify and i believe also that the health of our relationship will depend on our ability to take that same step and diversify u.s. private sector engagement in kuwait. one of the primary advantages is

investment destination for u.s. firms and it's the historically positive and very strong relationship between our two countries. kuwaitis at the same time recognize the value and quality of u.s. goods and services and expertise and regularly reach out to me to tell us they're interested in seeing more u.s. firms come to kuwait and operate there. as part of kuwait's experience of the arab spring, discussions with the government and throughout society have begun to sharpen their focus on developing strategies for sustainable, economic growth. kuwait held parliamentary leches on february 2nd and in the run-up to those elections, many of the parliamentary candidate it is called on the candidate to jump-start large-scale development projects designed to diversify kuwait's economy and to create new opportunities for private sector growth. even before that in 2010, kuwait's parliament passed a five-year development plan with

those specific aims in mind. implementation of the plan has not moved as quickly as many would have hoped, but progress is now beginning to take shape. apart from the continued sector development, kuwait's infrastructure plan is likely to be the driver of economic development over the next five to ten years. the budget for the plan has reportedly reached $130 billion and it will fund over $1,100 projections in a number of sectors including education, health care, transportation, telecommunications and information technology. in spite of the challenges of doing business in kuwait, i believe the u.s. firms are well positioned to succeed in a number of these areas and i'll touch on a few of the opportunities that i see as particularly fruitful for u.s. companies particularly in the fields of education, health care, telecommunications and information technology. >> on education, even before the liberation in 1991 our countries enjoyed a remarkable educational history largely due to the

kuwaitis beginning in the early '40s and 1950s that travel in the united states in the 1950s. thousands of kuwaiti students traveled to the u.s. to pursue educational programs. beyond providing those educational opportunities, however, american businesses involved in all aspects of education will find new opportunities for potential involvement. the kuwaiti government plans to invest its education sector over the next eight years. that development strategy includes university expansion plans and building new educational facilities and training teachers and developing new curricula at all educational levels. in the field of health care, another area where u.s. expertise is facing demand growth, over the next five years the ministry of health plans to upgrade and expand existing public hospitals as well as to build the number of new medical complexes. kuwaiti health officials have expressed an interest in working

with u.s. hospitals and medical schools on this projects including in the areas of project management and health care consulting and human resource development and hospital administration and technology transfers. kuwaitis expressed to me their preference for u.s. medical services and treatment and many of you know that they continued to sponsor medical treatment services abroad for 4,000 kuwaiti nationals and the u.s. is a primary destination for that group of patients. kuwaitis, like american doctors and hospitals and medical equipment in technology and medicine and given the preferences and u.s. competitive expansion contracts. in the field of i.t. and telecommunications there are a wealth of opportunities particularly for u.s. companies that are able to provide the level of technical expertise that kuwait requires as it aims to upgrade the existing infrastructure. over the next five to ten years, they will require to embrace

technologies from government to education to health care industry. one potential partner for the u.s. in u.s. i.t. and telecommunication firms is kuwait a minhestry of telecommunications. this ministry has been tasked for the telecommunications and infrastructure and has embarked on a plan to install the comprehensive fiber optics over the next five years. phase one of the plan was completed and the process is entering the second phase as the ministry looks to qualified firms to supervise the technical design and immremation of the massive project. more broadly, kuwait is exploring ways to utilize technology in improving government efficiency in expanding services for kuwaiti residents. some of the proekt js under discussion include improving data security and streamlining paperwork and increasing the number of public services that are available online. >> the bilateral relationship will continue to form a core

part of the bilateral relationship with kuwait both as governments and as people. at the embassy you can count on us to be there and to help support your efforts to do business in kuwait. i encourage all of you while you travel in kuwait to contact the commercial service or directly to my office with any requests for assistance that you have. i sincerely hope you return to kuwait often, if you haven't been there ien coup urge you to visit. take advantage of its education, health, telecommunications and information sectors as well as in the hydrocarbons and defense sector. thank you. >> thank you very much, each of you. the first question that came from the audience is for you, ambassador smith, and it has to do with alternative energy and a very particular kind, nuclear. the question really is where is sawed yabia on nuclear energy and has the cabinet approved nuclear. does kcare have a plan?

>> yes. yes. no. kcare stood up about a year ago. >> the king abdullah center for renewable energy given the charter of coming up with a plan for a long-term energy plan for saudi arabia. kcare only has about 15 employees in it. so they contract it out to a whole host of other people to look at this. they're proceeding, and i think wisely, to canvass the globe for the best technologies for wind, solar and nuclear. so in the case of nuclear, they have the use with us, the brits, the french and the south koreans and the chinese and the russians and the whole idea here is to

understand all of the technologies that are available and to identify the technologies that would be most appropriate for saudi arabia. so no they don't have a plan yet. they're headed in that direction, and i think you'll probably see a balanced plan that will focus first on solar. saudi arabia wants to become an energy country, not a petroleum country and it's given a technical challenge with coming up with a plan to generate the equivalent of 8 million barrels a day of electricity from solar power and saudi arabia has sun and they have a lot of space. so they'll be rolling sales off like a printing plant, and not worried so much about that. they're trying to solve the technical issue of

transportational electricity and one of the square problem. if they can do that they're going to make money off solar in three ways because they'll put the equivalent of 1 million, and 1.5 million in the open market and they'll take the excess and sell it to their brothers in the region because they're focused on a gcc grid, and third, the saudis do not export national gas. they use that as fee stocks or as energy advantage. i never use the word subsidy, of course, but the energy advantage to businesses and you can do that in electricity instead of natural gas and you can start putting natural gas in the open market and they'll make money three ways off of this. wind is a bit of a problem because the theory works good, but the pitting for wind is a problem that they haven't made. nuclear, they seem committed to move in that direction and we're

working diligently on a government to government solution and we're able to proceed a hit with that and they're identifying some technologies and the reality of it is they're focused on the small, modular reactor and idea. they really don't have that yet. that technology is about ten years off. so the short answer is it's moving in the right direction. the longer answer is a plan is coming together. it's not there, but i need to make sure that american companies are there because i think there will be a huge opportunity for us. >> thank you. >> the second question is directed to any of the panelists. i might ask ambassador corbin to address it first because it has to do with advice on how to engage in gcc countries on

private equity funds and certainly i've had some experience with such entities in the uae. if you might offer a few words on that and then i'd invite other panelists whose countries do have either sovereign investment funds or very active private equity funds to offer their comments as well. >> i would just say this is an area where obviously the emirates have a great interest in this. there was, you know, the 2008 crash in dubai which also affected abu dabby and it was a wake-up call and they are moving beyond that. as i said last year, was there a hold on a lot of outward-looking projections that were lifted and they are moving forward with their investments and they are again, open for business again and there are arab spring concerns which they've addressed now and they are moving forward. i think that the overall message

is the pause that we saw last year is pretty much over, but there will be concerns as you go forward and they're certainly focused on what happened in dubai and they're not going to spread their money and way around like they used to because of the model of dubai, but there may be ambassadors who have more and this is not an area that is something that we get into investors have things to say about that. >> yeah, please. >> well, they're now focused more with the sovereign wealth funds and the types of investments that they can do, and they are not as old as the ones in kuwait and abu dhabi and they're very quickly making up in a short time because of the tremendous wealth that they have accrued from the lng that they are exporting. >> they are looking for investment overseas.

a lot of it looking to europe to the east. some in the united states and again, looking for the kinds of things they can pick up the kinds of industries or properties that are a little distressed and figuring out how they can turn them around and buck them up. you see a lot of their buying of greek debt and companies in luxembourg and these kinds of things and i'm very happy to say that they have a big investment in the city center project here in washington, d.c., which is a project cap it will and they've made a $700 million project so they've taken a big step into the u.s. market with this project, so we'll see how this goes, and i think whether it has whetted their appetite for more projects and it's just finding the right fit.

>> and it's what matt was saying before, which is go on a website and connect. i have the luxury of having a very robust, foreign commercial service in ri riyadh and american companies are sometimes confused about how to connect and i would say go on the website and i would encourage american companies, just go on the website and it takes you trite fcs and weir in the business of connecting you and our fcs over the last year has connected more than 1,000 american companies with other counterparts in saudi arabia and it's something they do for a living and ask them not to be shy. just contact us and we'll help you. >> and it's the best knowledge inned of the sovereign

investment funds and it's notable for its success. it falls a very conservative investment strategy and investment banks and not just in the u.s. and europe that diversifies well and it's done very well. i'm not sure how i would advise and they're probably not too open to approaches from potential consultants or advisers. on the other hand there are a number of private equity funds and a lot of those are highly leveraged and now in the 2008 and 2009 period, but kuwait has a lot of private wealth and as those begin to rebuild, i'm sure in the u.s. they're still regarded as the preferred destination for investment. >> thank you. there's a general question about unemployment and youth unemployment and it's ambassador smith and i'll ask you to respond to it first and this has

a somewhat wider applicability and i would encourage any ambassadors to pipe up on it. the gist of the question is many of the jobs in the saudi private sector are occupied by foreign labor, skilled and unskilled. at the same time it's very high youth unemployment rate inside saudi arabia, and so the question is do young saudis object working in jobs that others might take? how real is the problem of youth unemployment? i assume this is an economic problem in saudi arabia. i'm sure it would be great to have heavier reflections on it and there are variations on this theme that probably play out all over the country that these investors represent. >> i think the youth unemployment problem today is

overstated. the challenge in a generation understated and certainly within the center of the country there is this tendency to not migrate to jobs that they'll have someone else do. not true in the eastern party or in the jobs. they're begging me to get american companies to set up factories. they want to work. the refinery in the exxon mobil facility, 92% of the workforce is saudi and it's blue collar, white collar so it's hard to say that the challenge in saudi arabia is a bloated public sector and saudis represent 90% of the public sector into 10% of

the private sector and the reality of the situation like that is the government becomes the biggest obstacle toward developing the private sector in entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises. >> that really is the challenge with diversifying the economy and they're tackling it, but, you know, you look at the sawedization issue today and it's good they're targeting jobs and the expectation is that you go get a job, but when you target third country nationals as your problem you essentially identify the solution as if we're going to solve the california unemployment problem by sending all of the mexicans back so there are more strawberries to for americans. you have to create new industry, new earn prizes.

it's all about technology creation and new industry with this hugely educated educated yn coming of age that you bring in at entry level management and know they have a career to develop over time. that really is the answer. and you got to really focus on the private sector to do that, and entrepreneurs and we're certainly helping with that. but it will be a challenge for that transformation. >> thank you. are there versions of this youth unemployment issue that play out in the countries to which others of you are credited and you would like -- any of you would like to comment on? >> i would just add for the uae they have abundant opportunities, dynamic leadership the prime example is employment of women and finding ways of getting women in the workforce, they realize if they do defense, airlines, hospitals, peaceful nuclear energy with a

million population they need to use all their human resources. i think there are issues, but the leadership is focused on youth and i think there is a positive story going on in the uae in general. >> i think there is somewhat of an element, correlation in oman, minority country in the sense the majority of the resident there's are omanies, you do still have much of the economy run by omanies at our embassy. majority of the employees at the embassy are omanies but per capita income is $20,000 a year. when you have $100,000 a year per capita income, your needs to enter the workforce in the kind of jobs that typically are available are much less. i think that is an element that play as role in what the expectations are and in what the needs are. i think in our country the

omanies are doing a good job, identifying where employment can be made available and training omanies to take the employment. >> susan? >> a little bit different in the sense it's a small native qatar population. 250,000 thought are qatari. women are entering in the workforce. they are very educated. the interesting thing good scheduled qataries can practicelily ask for the job and their price. because there is so much expansion and not enough qataries skilled to go around the jobs, there are opportunities for non-qataries in the workforce at a skilled level at a high paying level, and you're not taking any jobs from qataries. there is too much work to go around and local -- the local population can't fill the jobs. so it's a very different dynamic

there. >> look, there is one last question that is also a group question, i think it might be a good one to end on. the first part of this question i'll have to ask you, you'll have to address, is this a true perception and then if so, what should be done about it. the questioner asked are european businesses more successful than u.s. businesses in your country. is it true? if so, what is the problem. ambassador corbin? >> it's not the europeans that we need to worry about, the turs, chinese and indians, the europeans were competitive, french and british are active. they have very good business councils, they have -- very competitive and prepared to go overseas in a way we're only seeing u.s. companies do now but i think it's not the europeans we need to worry about, it's the other countries and we need to

be more aggressive, we need to highlight the fact that we have innovation, the example of food when you look at 80% of them have diabetes, the fact that we have healthy food. del monte won all sort of awards. we do things competitors aren't doing, same thing in health care and other areas where we have an advantage, that is what we have to take on. i don't think it's the europeans, it is the other countries i mentioned that are the problem. >> anyone of you have a different or same view? >> i hear this from bd guys, sarkozy comes in, they winnal the contracts, that is whining. you follow the money, takes to you riyadh. there are 51000 saudis going to school in the united states today.

that is their choice, they want to come here for a reason. they want to connect with american businessmen and businesswomen. we came home after 9-11, and left a void. we were unaccompanied at riyadh for 5 1/2 years, my wife janet was the first spouse to come back in 5 1/2 years. well guess what? the world doesn't like a void. who filled it? the south korea and chinese. if you want it cheap, go to china. but here's the problem. china wants to be the world's manufacturer and they are doing exceptionally good job of that. what is saudi arabia's problem? jobs. if you're what technology transfer, if you want training and education, if you want to develop your own infrastructure, you're not going to get that from the chinese. you won't get it from the south

koreans, you will get it from americans. so i repeatedly talk about the value proposition they are offering and if they ever let a competition result in a price competition with the chinese, they will lose. if they can present a value proposition that comes with education and training package where you will create an entity the saudis can worun, you have winning combination. it's very competitive because of that value proposition. >> others? >> i do hear the perception and i think maybe it's sometimes the european governments are generally follow aggressive policy of supporting commercial travel and visits and often senior government officials from

the european countries will be accompanied by large business delegations and we might look at doing more of that. but i certainly don't see that bearing out in the trade figures. at the end of the day, it comes down to what's the type of product. the areas i touched on, what i think they have in common education and health care and that type of infrastructure, this is where at least in kuwait they want the u.s. involved. because that's where they feel -- that's -- this is where it's touch mig liing my life, they w best and turn to the u.s. for that. >> look, don told us we're on a tight schedule, we need to close but before we do, i want to thank all of you for your insights and your service. [ applause ] >> thank you ambassador larson. i just want to really thank all the ambassadors today, i'm an

old guy and when i started kicking around the middle east back in lincoln's second term, the last place you would visit was the american embassy. where no one knew anything about what was going on commercially, and anything you said was going to go in cable and get slugged to 19,000 resipiants in countries. i can remember back when -- i'm having a senior moment, wonderful secretary of state who just died recently -- larry ecleberger. i credit larry who said we have to change this, we have to make it very user friendly, we have

to help our american companies. and i was at commerce and skeptical but larry made me a convert and it is just dpextra ordinary today. i don't think there is a better cadre that any country has than our's. not only informed about what is going on commercially, but understand what is going on commerci commercially. ambassador smith says it gets down to the value proposition, on behalf of all of us in the room i want to salute you guys, thank you very much for your service and i hope you can come back and we do this again next year. thank you. god bless you. [ applause ]