Saudi Arabia does not intend to choose between Russia and Ukraine or join the sanctions against Russia, the kingdom's Minister of Economy and Planning, Faisal al-Ibrahim, said in an interview published Tuesday in the Japanese business newspaper Nikkei. He gave it during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.
"We have deep trade ties with both Russia and Ukraine and we intend to maintain them," the minister said. Asked about the possibility of joining sanctions against Russia, Faisal al-Ibrahim noted that these measures "are unilateral and will remain unilateral." He made it clear that Saudi Arabia does not intend to support the sanctions policy pursued by the United States and its allies.
The minister praised the role of the OPEC+ agreement involving Russia and rejected calls for a dramatic expansion of oil production to lower the price of the resource. "At the moment, our focus is not on increasing production, but on the stability of supply," he explained. - "If OPEC+ did not exist, the situation with oil prices would be incomparably worse".
The minister also confirmed that Saudi Arabia will invest the excess oil revenues in new technologies, the development of renewable energy sources and moving away from unilateral dependence on oil.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS