Kuwait’s Role in International Finance

It need hardly be remarked that the recent changes in the world order have seen many emergent countries gain control of their resources and the changes in the price of oil have transferred much of its value to the producer countries which hitherto had passed to the extractive companies and their home countries. This has placed a remarkable degree of power in the hands of a new group of operators on the world’s industrial and financial markets. The changes in oil prices and in the relationships between emergent nations and the former colonial or imperial powers are essentially interdependendent, in that the ability to influence prices undoubtedly depended at least in part on the ability of producer countries to exercise their sovereignty. It is essential to recognise, however, that these are two separate but equally important elements in the development of the new structure of financial arrangements which are arising in the world. Their separateness is stressed because the transfer of ownership of financial assets should not in itself be cause for concern. International markets exist for precisely that purpose. When a substantial group of operators entering any market, however, are motivated by a different set of principles and objectives from those under which existing operators work, it is often then that concern is expressed as to the effect of the operations of the newcomers on the existing patterns of relationships and the balance of power between existing groups.