it is a $15 billion international airport. bectal has had the program management of this and it's due to be completed in 12/12/12 which is when the opening is going to be and there will be ancillary parts to the airport that will be built after the new international airport is built. this is area ripe for u.s. businesses and expertise. there is deep water sea port, 7 billion, part of that now is being developed by the company. i believe it's e com as part of the project management and there will be more bids in to go in terms of the construction and all of the management of that project. 35 billion in rail project and that's right light rail, trains, that's people movers and metros

and all of this needs to be constructed between now and 2020 to be able to accommodate all of the people coming in for the world cup and to be able to promote the business and transportation that is needed. and the road networks, they're currently on tap, 30 projects for roads that are going to be bid. american companies so far have done well on a lot of these projects from kbr, parsons and brinkerhoff, et cetera, but this new project that will be built 20 billion in the next few years. a lot of work in that and then in the water and electricity segment that needs to be expanded another 3 billion in the next six years. this is not even to mention all of the work they're doing in renewables as ambassador smith rightly pointed out on the issue of shale gas is going to revolutionize the whole region and qatar is the leading export

of lng and continuing to develop its capability is increasingly shifting its markets away from the u.s. and still exporting to europe. i might add, the uk is singularly dependent upon lng from qatar, but now in shifting its vision toward the east, india, china, after the catastrophe that took place in japan recently. japan has now emerged as one of the top importers of lng. so again, more markets going to the east and no end in sight in terms of the demand for their product. so they are expanding in all areas, diversifying in science, technology, renewables and making a mark for themselves as a diversified economy with much more than just the energy sector as their focus. thank you. >> thank you, ambassador. next, i would like to hear from ambassador schmere from amman. >> let me just start by saying that just like our neighbors in the gulf, we also have a country

which has a growing economy. it has, it's very welcoming to international business and particularly to the united states business. it has a lot of needs. it has a young population and so they're really looking to do exactly what the title of our session here is called and that is diversify their economy to ensure that beyond the area of hydrocarbons they will have a well-structured and well diversified economy. when we look at oman let me conceptually divide the commercial opportunities into two elements. one is oman as a market and the second is oman as a platform and i think that's a very important way for businesses looking to engage in the region and should look at oman as a market, oman does need a lot of things and is doing a lot of things and they've been very successful in not only maintaining and

expanding the hydrocarbon production and where they had reductions and had declined for a period and they've turned that around and now are generating revenues and are using those revenues wisely to invest in the future and one aspect which again is another example of where american companies can play a very important role and it is probably the single greatest contributor to oman's ability to turn around its previously declining petroleum production it was when occidental petroleum went in, and it revitalized one of the main oilfields and increased production there by over tenfold and that turned around oman's declining production. so that's a very good example of an american company bringing in

its technology and working closely with the omanis. it's run largely by omanis and is a success in terms of american technology with omani openness to such investments. the areas domestically for oman is not a lot of population that's about 2 million omanis and they're looking to expand in a number of areas and tourism is their highest priority and they're also looking at services. and it's certainly training, franchising which has been mentioned and consultants and they're very much looking for consultants and good consultants to support the projects that are under way there. in terms of the structure of the market they have a couple of specific advantages and one is a free trade agreement with oman and more and more companies are leveraging that in order to be able to face production there

for the oman market because of the advantages that accrue two of the free trade agreement and that leads to the second element of oman's attractiveness and that is oman as a platform. if you look at the map very quickly, one sees it has the great advantage of lying outside the gulf and outside the strait of hormuz and oman i think is consciously leveraging that geographic location in order to make itself the preferred location for companies that are producing and marketing into the gulf, and so they're building ports, they're expanding the northern port of sohar, building a new port in the middle of the country and expanding their shipment hub in solala. they're building exports and they'll be tying into the rail line that susan mentioned. so they're setting themselves up as a location where companies that want to produce or market

anywhere into the gulf can do so very conveniently and very safely by bringing their goods into or out of a port in oman and avoid having to go into the gulf itself. they set up free zones with all of these locations so that you can actually do your business without having to deal with local taxes. they have an ambitious training program. one of the responses the sultan had to last year's events 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. >> i very much appreciate the opportunity to address this topic on diversifying away from 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 elections on february 2nd and in the run-up to those elections, many of the parliamentary

candidates 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 grow 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 a 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 for their education. 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 five 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 12,000 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 kuwaiti ministry of communications. this ministry has been tasked for the telecommunications and infrastructure and has embarked on a plan to install the comprehensive fiber optics network 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 implementation 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 projects 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 foreign 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 i encourage you to visit. take advantage to support development 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 saudi arabia 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 atomic 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 signed m.o.u.s 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 barrels back 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 been able to overcome. 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 ahead with that and they're identifying some technologies and the reality of it is they're focused on the small, modular reactor 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 dhabi and it was a wake-up call and they are moving beyond that.

as i said last year, there was 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 were arab spring concerns, which they've addressed now. they are moving forward. i think that the overall message is that the pause that we saw last year is pretty much over, but there will be concerns as they go forward and they're certainly focused on what happened in dubai, and they're not going to spread their money the way around like they used to because of the model of dubai. but there may be ambassadors who have mosh, and this is not an area that is something that we get into extensively, but i don't know if the other investors have things to say about that. >> yeah, please. >> well, they're now focused more on sovereign wealth funds and the types of investments that they can do. 'are not as old as the ones in kuwait and abu dhabi, nor as

large, but they are very quickly making up in a short time because of the tremendous wealth that they have accrued from the l & g 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, but again, looking for the kinds of things where 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. but i'm very happy to say that they also have a big investment in the city center project here in washington, d.c., which was a project in search of capital. so now they've made a big -- it's a $700 billion 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. >> others? >> i would just add and ecowas matt was saying before when he said go on the website and connect. i have the luxury of having a very robust, foreign commercial service in re-yao and daran and as companies can come in, i'm amazed that american companies are confused sometimes 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 right to fcs, and we're 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.

so ask them not to be shy. just contact us and we'll help you. >> on the question of the investment funds, kuwait, of course, has one of the oldest best managed of the investment funds in the region. it's notable for its success. it follows a very conservative investment strategy and follows the investment strategy of 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 probably are not toot 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. some were wiped out in the 2008, 2009 period. but kuwait still has an awful lot of private wealth. and as those begin to rebuild, i'm sure the u.s. is still regarded as the preferred destination for investment.

>> thank you. there's a general question about unemployment and youth unemployment, and it's addressed to ambassador smith, and i'll ask you to respond to it first. again, i think this has somewhat wider applicability and i would encourage any of the 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, there's very high youth unemployment rate inside saudi arabia. so the question asked, does young saudis object to working in jobs that is young americans or others make take? how real is the problem of youth unemployment? i assume as it's perceived as both a political and economic problem in saudi arabia. so i'm sure it would be great to have your reflections on it, and

i think there are variations on this theme that probably play out in all of the countries that these ambassadors represent. >> yeah, 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 can have someone else do. not as true in the eastern province or in the of hajazz. >>. >> go to hasa, they're begging me to get 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

. and the challenge? saudi arabia is a bloated public sector, and saudis represent 90% of the public sector and about 10% of the private sector. and the reality of a situation like that is then the government becomes the biggest obstacle toward developing the private sector and 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 saudi -- saudiization issue today, and i mean, it's good that they're targeting jobs and the expectation is that you go get a job. but when you target third 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's more jobs to pick strawberries for americans. that's not going to solve your problem. you've got to the create new industry, new enterprises. it's all about technology creation and new industry with this hugely educated young generation 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've got to really focus on the private sector to do that in an entrepreneur, and we're certainly helping with that. but it will be a challenge for that transformation. >> are there versions of this youth unemployment issue that play out to the countries to which others of you are credited and that any of you would like to comment on? >> i would add for the uae, they have abundant opportunities,

dynamic leadership. the prime example of this is the employment of women and finding ways of getting women into the workforce. they realize if they're going to do defense, airlines, hospitals peaceful nuclear energy, with a million population, they really need to use all their human resources. i think there are issues but i think that the leadership is really focused on youth and there is a positive story going on in the uae in general. >> i think there is somewhat of an element, correlation in oman, oman is a minority country in the sense that the majority of the residents there are omanis and so you do still have much of the economy run by omannys 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. so i think that's an element that plays a role in what the expectations are and in what the needs are. i think in our country the omanis are doing a good job, identifying where employment can be made available and training omanis to take that employment. >> susan? >> a little bit different in the sense it's a small native qatar population. the country is 1.8 million but of that maybe 250,000 are you qatari. women are entering in the workforce. they are very educated. the interesting thing good scheduled qataris can practically ask for their job and almost ask for their price. because there is so much expansion and not enough qataris who are skilled to go