Petro-States: $4 Trillion Dollars in Change

Steve Weisman has a strong piece in today's New York Times on the spending habits of the world's new and long-time petro-states. According to his reporting, they have $4 trillion dollars on hand.

The oil-rich states, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Russia and Kazakhstan, are looking to invest the money wisely. But they are also wary of the type of political backlash that Dubai suffered last year in the attempted purchase of U.S. ports by D.P. World, Weisman writes. So they are spreading the property purchases into Europe although the U.S. is still their leading investment, he says.

Chip Cummins and Rick Carew, my former colleagues at The Wall Street Journal, have an extremely detailed piece on the same topic.

As a leading example, both pieces point out the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's $7.5 billion purchase of a large slice of Citigroup's shares.

Officials in Russia and Kazakhstan have both said they intend to invest the proceeds of their oil wealth in western properties. In most of the cases, we are simply talking about investment. But Russia seems always to provoke concerns about a possible political agenda, and the coming buying spree will heighten them.

Photo: Realmiamibeach
Rights: Creative Commons