Saudi Investment Rankings "Unprecedented" According to Leading Harvard Business Professor

Online, October 6, 2010 (Newswire.com) - NYC - Commenting on the speech given by His Excellency, Amr Al-Dabbagh about the investment climate in Saudi Arabia at the Harvard Investment Summit, Professor John Quelch, Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and former London Business School Dean who has served on the Boards of 12 publicly listed companies, referred to the Saudi investment scenario as unprecedented.

The Summit, organized annually by the International Economic Alliance and held at the Harvard Club in New York City, occurs at the same time of the General Assembly of the UN to leverage the presence of a number of Heads of State, Ministers and Business Leaders who attend the event.

According to Professor Quelch, "For KSA to move from 67 to 13 in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Report one of the most important performance benchmarks for global investors, in just a few short years is almost unprecedented. And for KSA to improve the foreign direct investment level from $2 billion to $35 billion between 2004 and 2009 is equally impressive. Changes of this magnitude do not occur by chance; they are the result of sound policies, continuity of commitment and excellent execution."

In addition to His Excellency, Amr Al-Dabbagh and Professor Quelch, other distinguished speakers at the 2010 event included The Honorable Paul A. Volcker, Chairman of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve and IEA Co-Chair; The Honorable Peter G. Peterson, Co-Founder of Blackstone and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce; His Excellency Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Netherlands; His Excellency Abdullah Gulor, the President of Turkey; His Excellency Boris Tadic, the President of Serbia; and His Excellency Mikheil Saakashvili, the President Georgia to name a few.