• Home
• /
• Local business

ME Primed for Investment, Says Dr Kaul

Srinagar-born British citizen, Dr Kaul, is associated with the CBC since it’s inception in 1997. He was chosen to head the CBC by former British prime minister Tony Blair.

“We want to connect South-South countries and create more South-South investment flows. South is basically developing and emerging country market in Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America,” he said in an interview with Khaleej Times. Dr Kaul, who has a doctorate from the University of Paris, Sorbonne, believes that in the next few years the flow of investment between developing countries, mostly in the southern hemisphere, would exceed the flow between and to the developed world. He said business links were growing at a fast pace between large developing economies like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and the Middle East.

CBC provides leadership in increasing international trade and investment flows, creating new business opportunities, promoting good governance and corporate social responsibility, reducing the digital divide and integrating developing countries into the global market. In fulfilling its mission, CBC strives to provide a bridge between the private sector and governments, between emerging markets and developed markets and between small businesses and international private sector.

Dr Kaul, a former UN adviser and the youngest dean of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, said, “We need new financial instruments or new ways of financial access one of the access is on project financing and trade financing in Islamic banking and it’s not only countries in Middle East or Islamic states we are looking at.” Many Commonwealth countries.

Dr Kaul said, offer good investment opportunities but suffer from popular misconceptions, uneven media coverage and failure to promote their economic strengths to important external audiences.

The CBC partners include governments and multilateral organisations like the UK’s Department for International Development, Unctad and the Saarc Chamber of Commerce & Industry. The Commonwealth is a large and diverse grouping of countries, accounting for $3 trillion of world trade. The Commonwealth with a combined population of two billion people account for some 20 per cent of world trade.

The forthcoming annual Arab-Americas-Asia-Africa Business Summit of CBC in Dubai is aimed to boost investment flows in emerging countries market, said Dr Kaul. The CBC, Dubai Group and the UAE are jointly organising the third Summit, scheduled from February 4-5 in Dubai.

abdulbasit@khaleejtimes.com