Saudi swats back at Egypt over G20 remarks

BROTHERLY DISAGREEMENT: Comments by Egypt's finance minister Youssef Boutros Ghali (pictured) have upset Saudi Arabia. (Getty Images)

Saudi Arabia is able to promote Middle Eastern interests at the Group of 20 meetings, it said on Tuesday, rebuffing remarks by Egypt's finance minister that the rich kingdom was unqualified to speak for the region.

Saudi Arabia, the only Arab member of the G20 group of rich nations and key developing states and the IMF's largest Arab shareholder, attended a G20 meeting in Washington this month.

"We are not there to represent any country but ourselves," Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf told Reuters in an interview in the Omani capital. "But traditionally we have always reflected the interest and the concerns of developing nations in general and of Arab nations in particular," he said.

"With all due respect to my brother Dr. Ghali [Egyptian Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali], I'm surprised by his remarks."

Last week, the Egyptian finance minister, when asked whether he was satisfied with Saudi Arabia's presence at the G20 meetings, Boutros-Ghali told a CNN program: "I cannot speak for the region as a whole but I think representation should be through a country that understands the various issues being faced by specific group of nations."

He went on to say it would be preferable to be represented by "a state that shares the same issues as yours and that shares the... challenges you are faced with."

Assaf said Saudi Arabia is part of the G20 because of its status as the largest economy in the Middle East and "a very active player in international financial institutions in addition to the major role it plays in stabilising oil markets."

"If there's a country that understands better than anyone the issue of developing nations, it's Saudi Arabia," he said. (Reuters)

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