THE OPEC FUND IN THE WORLD
Mission Samarkand: To the heart of the Silk Road
AIIB Annual Meeting, Samarkand
Promoting business cooperation at the AIIB Annual Meeting
Tareq Alnassar, Vice President, Private Sector, OPEC Fund and Khalid Khadduri, Business Development Director, OPEC Fund after a meeting in Samarkand
O PEC Fund Vice President, Private Sector Tareq Alnassar and Business Development Director Khalid Khadduri led a high-level mission to the Annual Meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in September in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, located at the heart of the ancient Silk Road. In recent years the OPEC Fund has considerably stepped up its activities in the Central Asian republic and the conference provided an opportunity to further deepen relations. Among others, the delegation met with the Uzbek lenders Asaka Bank and SQB as providing finance to local banks
for on-lending to domestic enterprises is a cornerstone of the OPEC Fund’s engagement in Uzbekistan.
Saudi development and investment holding company supporting sustainable infrastructure. The focus of the discussion was potential future cooperation. In further meetings AIIB leaders such as Sir Danny Alexander, VP for Policy and Strategy, Rajat Mistra, Acting VP for Investment Clients Region 1 and Financial Institutions and Funds, Global, and Hun Kim, Acting VP, Investment Solutions and their respective teams, reiterated strong interest in deepening the partnership with the OPEC Fund.
In recent years new milestones were reached with large-scale investments in clean energy. During an official visit in May OPEC Fund President Abdulhamid Alkhalifa signed a partnership agreement for 2024-2029, earmarking US$500 million in new financing to support the country’s sustainable development agenda. The OPEC Fund representatives also met with Mohammed A. Abunayyan, the Chairman of Vision Invest, a leading
“United by a shared mission”
IAEA Ministerial Conference, Vienna
OPEC Fund and IAEA seek science-based answers to development challenges
T he OPEC Fund and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are deepening their cooperation in promoting sustainable development. Opening the IAEA Ministerial Conference in Vienna in late November, OPEC Fund Vice President, Public Sector Al Shaimaa Al-Sheiby said: “We are united by a shared mission: to improve people’s lives through the transformative power of science and technology.” She highlighted the cooperation with IAEA in the areas of food security and sustainable agriculture. “As we
face pressing global challenges, it is clear that technological solutions are indispensable,” she said. Vice President Al-Sheiby’s visit followed an earlier engagement by OPEC Fund President Abdulhamid Alkhalifa who spoke at the 2024 IAEA Scientific Forum. An invitation by IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to visit the agency’s laboratories in Seibersdorf near Vienna provided a close-up opportunity to see some of the ground-breaking global work that the agency is leading, in partnership with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), on
animal production and health, insect pest control, human health and cancer treatment, and plant breeding and genetics. Notably, the IAEA’s work in Seibersdorf is central to global efforts to protect the Cavendish variety of banana, which is a major export crop in Latin America. The Cavendish banana is extremely vulnerable to disease and possibly commercial extinction, highlighting the importance of the IAEA/ FAO work to protect it and the many livelihoods that rely upon it.
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