Alwaleed, Google eye possible tech tie-up

01/06/2011 00:00 AST

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal has held talks with Google chairman Eric Schmidt over "potential business cooperation" between Kingdom Holding and the US Internet giant.

Any collaboration would focus on the technology sector, Kingdom said in an emailed statement Monday, following a Paris meeting between the pair.

Alwaleed holds significant investments in the US market, through his stakes in Citigroup, News Corp and Time Warner.

Google, the world’s largest search engine, has said it is aggressively expanding in the Middle East through staff recruitment and investment in its English and Arabic-language products.

Mohamad Mourad, Google’s regional managing for the Gulf region, said the company is "really serious" about its regional business. "We are investing in many ways to match this commitment. We’re definitely hiring aggressively," he told Arabian Business.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt said Thursday that Arab leaders were wrong to block internet access during the recent Arab Spring revolts and had only hurt their own economies.

"It is a terrible mistake for them to do so," he told a briefing on the sidelines of a G8 summit. "Among other things it completely screws up the economy, communications, the exchange of goods, the electronic commerce, the flow of information into these countries... It’s not a good idea to shut down the Internet in your country."

Rupert Murdock-owned News Corp last month said it would raise its stake in Saudi’s Rotana Group, the media group controlled by Alwaleed, in an investment worth $35 million.

Rotana owns the Arab world’s largest record label and about 40 percent of the region’s movies, and operates a number of free-to-air television channels.

Agencies