Qatar Daily News

State-owned Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) said Thursday it has signed a contract worth 48.35 million dinar (around 170 million U.S. dollars) with an Italian company for laying down a crude oil pipeline.

That was part of the company’s plan to inject 17.5 billion to 24.5 billion dollars into oil and gas facilities in the next five years.

The official KUNA news agency said the Italian company ABB Italia will build a crude pipeline from northern Kuwait to the central mixing unit and the northern reservoirs.
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Car sales fell in Kuwait in 2009 to 119,133 units, from 122,623 in 2008. The impact of the international economic crisis was felt in the Gulf state’s economy; plunging oil prices in the latter half of 2008 and early 2009 had a serious effect on the country’s income, while tightening credit also curtailed economic growth.
The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) estimates that the country slid into recession, in 2009, with us estimating a 2.4% contraction.

Kuwait has so far invested $1.5 billion in Turkey, according to the Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah’s official consultant in Turkey.

The Kuwaiti emir is planning to implement three or four giant projects worth $3 billion in Turkey, said Uğur Akkuş, the group leader of the Sems Turk Kuwait-Turkey investment consultancy company.

“A big portion of the $3 billion investment, which will be implemented in Turkey via Sems Turk, a Kuwait-Turkey investment consultancy company, will be in real estate. We are planning to focus on Istanbul,” Akkuş said. “The company is also interested in Turkey’s hydroelectric power plants as well as its agriculture sector.”

“Everything in the Gulf region relies on imports. Turkey has the potential to become the food storage of the Gulf region in the coming years,” said Akkuş. “Our company is also interested in the Southeastern Anatolia Project [GAP].”
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