Kuwait Investment Office (KIO) marks 70 years of “unique” partnership with UK, reflecting Kuwait leadership’s success in creating KIO to generate “huge returns to help the economy,” a senior British government official said.
“It is a huge celebration of our partnership with Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) over the past 70 years, which has been consistent, and unique,” Minister of State in the Department for Business and Trade Lord Dominic Johnson told KUNA in an interview to mark KIO’s 70th anniversary in London. “The leadership of Kuwait had so successfully created this fund, which generated huge returns to help the economy,” he added.
His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah partonized and attended 70th anniversary celebration in London yesterday.
Lord Dominic said he was “personally, very proud to have the chance to meet your Crown Prince” who he described as “wonderful, thoughtful leader.” Lord Dominic said he met with senior officials accompanying His Highness the Crown Prince including Deputy Premier, Minister of Oil and Acting Finance Minister Dr. Saad Al-Barrak, Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Sabah and Managing Director of KIA Ghanem Al-Ghunaiman and was “very proud to showcase the opportunities in the UK at the same time.
“What I admire about Kuwait Investment Office in the UK is that they take the opportunities, so when there’s a bit of volatility or turmoil in the turbulence in the markets, they use it,” he said as the future lies ahead of mutual benefits.
“I think if I look at the future, what I’m optimistic about is the relationship we have is, developing from simply being a property play. I think if you go about 50 years or to the origination of the chaos activities in London, they tended to be focused more around physical property and then over the last few years you’ve seen a proliferation.
“Investments into infrastructure which is very interesting and going forward into science and technology and to into clean energy,” said the senior official.
Lord Dominic said the British government planned to levelling up in order to have prosperity across the UK, not solely in London but in the southeast regions, citing many opportunities in those areas.
Asked about investment in Artificial Intelligence with an AI summit due towards end of the year, Lord Dominic said the British government was keen on having input of all nations including Kuwait.
“We have a number of companies that are looking to participate … we want people to come here. We want the best minds to come here. We want the best capital to come here to develop our opportunities and future working with countries like Kuwait” to invest in AI sector.
Lord Dominic, on whether he believed AI was more rewarding than oil, said he would have thought it was “more scalable than oil. And yet the fixed costs for development is probably about the same, but the opportunities I’m very optimistic about AI.” He said people focused on negatives of AI “whereas I think the opportunities for changing our life for the better, for better allocating resources for freeing people up from work that will allow them to do other things. I think it’s just amazing,” as long as the use was safe and monitored.
Lord Dominic said Britain and Kuwait were celebrating 125 years of specific relationship, with more than 9,000 Kuwaitis studying in UK.