Germany's Scholz to make official trip to Gulf at weekend

Germany's Scholz to make official trip to Gulf at weekend
September 19, 2022, 7:30 pm

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz with Prime Minister of the Saarland (Photo: Scholz's official Twitter page)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this weekend, with Germany's energy needs expected to be high on the agenda.

German Chancellor will travel to Saudi Arabia on Saturday (Sep 24) for the start of a two-day visit to the Gulf region, the Berlin government said on Monday (Sep 19).

A government spokesperson told reporters in Berlin, the weekend visit to the Gulf states will, among other things, focus on Germany as an investment location.

In Saudi Arabia, Scholz is due to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said.

Scholz is scheduled to meet the president of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, on Sunday (Sep 25), before heading to Qatar for talks there and then back to Germany later that day.

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In Qatar, the focus is likely to be on gas supplies. Scholz's economy minister, Robert Habeck, agreed on an energy partnership with the emirate in March, but there have been no concrete deals so far between the two countries.

Qatar is one of the world's largest exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) - one of the key sources of energy being sought by Berlin as a replacement for Russian fossil fuels in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

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