The UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT) has attempted to boost Saudi projects like Neom by saying it is “hugely exciting” to potential investors – despite a marked lack of interest.
Chad Woodward, director of trade and investment at the British embassy in Saudi Arabia offered numerous platitudes to the UK’s key trading partner at the Infrastructure Week event last week, saying projects like Neom would lead to “huge opportunities as [Saudi Arabia] takes forward its national transformation program under Vision 2030.”
Simon Kelly, deputy consul general and head of the DIT at the British Consulate in Jeddah, told Arab News: “British businesses are keen to find out more about the exciting opportunities in Saudi Arabia, including the Red Sea Development Project, Amaala, Diriyah Gate, Qiddiya, and of course Neom.”
The UK has faced a huge amount of internal political pressure over its arms sales to Saudi Arabia in recent years. It is keen to promote the economic case for its close relationship with the tyrannical regime of de facto ruler crown prince Mohammed bin Salman – despite the fact that many British companies are keeping as far away as possible from associations with the brutal regime.
Potential UK investors in projects like Neom are looking at the cost of investment – would a country that has taken such a hit from coronavirus, falling oil prices and international condemnation over its human rights record and brutal war on Yemen really be the safest place to invest capital?
Comments like these from the UK government are an attempt by a waning imperial power to maintain links to a waning economic power. However, most people in the UK see beyond this hyperbole.
It is more likely that contributions like this are aimed at the Saudi audience – a show of solidarity between powers still keen to exert power over the whole Middle East
