RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Sunday he expects Saudi Arabia to contribute to the International Monetary Fund's bailout reserves after he promised business leaders in the Gulf that they would have a say in any future new world economic order.
Brown is leading calls for oil-rich Middle Eastern countries to be among the biggest donors to the IMF's coffers, which at $250 billion have already been depleted by emergency cash calls from Iceland, Hungary and the Ukraine totaling some $30 billion.
"The Saudis will I think contribute so we can have a bigger fund worldwide," he said after a meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah late Saturday and business leaders early Sunday.
Analysts have argued that Gulf states will feel little impetus to bolster the IMF fund, given its domination by the United States and the G7 industrialized nations.
Kuwait's finance minister, Mostafa al-Shimali, told Al-Anbaa daily in comments published Sunday that Kuwait was prepared to listen to what Brown had to offer.
"The matter of supporting world markets depends on investment opportunities on offer and their possible returns," he said.
Any funds from Gulf states are unlikely to be pledged before a meeting of G-20 nations to hammer out potential reform of the global financial system to prevent a repeat of the current crisis, scheduled for November 15 in Washington D.C., which will also be attended by Abdullah.
"I believe that your country has a crucial role to play and your voice must be heard," Brown earlier told business leaders in a breakfast address on the first stop of a tour of the Gulf that also takes in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who is traveling with Brown and a delegation of more than 20 senior British executives, said Brown's 20-minute one-on-one chat with Abdullah stressed the importance of the situation.
"They are getting each other on to the same page of analysis and the agreed response and Saudi Arabia's active participation in getting the world through this first financial crisis of the global age," Mandelson told reporters. "But that is a process, not an event."
Brown said that the Middle East "will want to invest both in helping the world get through this very difficult period of time but I also think people want to work with us so we are less dependent on oil and have more stability in oil prices."
Brown, who has drawn ire from some oil producing states for criticizing a recent decision by OPEC to cut production to lift prices, told business leaders here that it was in everyone's interest to have a stable crude price.
He said that the meeting of oil producers and consumers led by Saudi Arabia's Abdullah in Jeddah in July "broke new ground in recognizing ... that we have common interests as producers and consumers in more stable energy prices and the need for a sustainable transition to a more low carbon emissions economy for the longer-term."
OPEC last month cut oil production by 1.5 billion barrels per day to lift the oil price, warning that investment in key production was under threat because of the sharp drop in the price from a high of $147 at the time of the Jeddah summit in July to under $70 currently.
Britain is planning a summit in London in December to follow up that meeting. The London gathering was initially to be held at heads of state level, but amid controversy over whom had — or had not — been invited from the oil producing states, Downing St. said it would be held at ministerial level.
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