Shopping around

This is from the article, NYC Shops Cater to Euro-Toting Tourists, by Eva Woo in BusinessWeek in relation to the recent decline of USD.

For economists, the tourism boom also drives home the broader forces at work behind the dollar's decline. Those same forces have led to a surge in foreign investment in the U.S. Big financial houses such as Citigroup (C) and Merrill Lynch (MER) recently raised billions from government funds in Kuwait, Singapore, Korea, and elsewhere. Foreign purchases of U.S. assets last year set a record of $405.7 billion, according to Thomson Financial (TOC), up 92% from $210.9 billion in 2006. The dollar's decline is "part of a broader adjustment needed to bring the U.S.'s trade deficit down," says Brad Setser, an international economics researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Becoming a world financial power

This is from the article, Kuwait's role to promote media outshines others in Gulf region, in the Arab Times, Kuwait News.

'With the current turbulences of the stock markets, Kuwait, like Singapore, is now ready to become not only an oil power but a world financial power. The country gives as well the feeling that it invests money with a very accurate sense of opportunity, avoiding wastes and useless showoffs,' said Mettan.

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