A high-level Bush administration official told business leaders in the oil-rich Gulf on Tuesday that the battered US economy is open to more investment by the region's government-owned funds and other wealthy investors.
Speaking to officials and reporters at the Dubai Financial Center during a five-country Gulf tour, Deputy US Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt said he is meeting with sovereign-wealth funds, companies and other financial institutions in the region in an effort to promote the US as an investment destination.
Kimmitt said that while he is not seeking specific commitments from Gulf leaders, he is aiming to emphasize that the US is "open to investment."
"Neither the US ... nor the rest of the world can afford to turn inward," he said. "Instead, we must rely on increased interaction with each other to help drive our economies forward."
Kimmitt said many potential investors he has met in the region have been looking at possible deals in the US over the past month. The question now is only when they might invest, he added.
State-owned funds from the Gulf and elsewhere pumped tens of billions of dollars into ailing Western financial institutions such as Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. over the past year. But as the global financial crisis deepened, the funds backed away from putting money in as the value of their existing stakes dwindled.
Investors from Dubai, one of seven semiautonomous states that make up the United Arab Emirates, and elsewhere in the Gulf have tried to keep a low profile in the US following a political firestorm that broke out in 2006 over the possibility that a Dubai-based company would operate some US ports.
Kimmitt said "much has changed, and changed for the good," since the DP World ports controversy.
The US has streamlined the approval process covering acquisitions by foreign investors and has formalized a policy that seeks to "resolve any concerns" rather than block deals outright, he said.
Federal regulators are also rewriting policies with the aim at giving potential overseas investors more clarity about the approval process and about the types of deals that have raised security concerns, he said.
Gulf sovereign-wealth funds have attracted considerable attention from US lawmakers in recent years as their host states grew richer on the back of ballooning energy prices.
Critics argue that the funds' lack of transparency is cause for concern, and some worry that the funds pose a threat to national security by giving foreign governments too great a stake in strategic US companies.
Deutsche Bank estimated last week that sovereign-wealth funds around the world now control $3.6 trillion worth of assets. The bank predicted that number will grow by 15 percent per year, and reach nearly $10 trillion by 2015.