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Berlin: German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck plans to meet the managing director of the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), a leading sovereign wealth fund, to improve their relations, a magazine said on Saturday.
The weekly Der Spiegel, citing a finance ministry official, said Steinbrueck planned to meet KIA managing director Bader Al Sa'ad during a trip to the Middle East in late May.
On Friday, Steinbrueck and finance ministers from Nordic and Baltic states called for sovereign wealth funds to operate with transparency and for the states they invest in not to discriminate against them.
Many German politicians are nervous about the influence sovereign wealth funds can wield, and their capacity to buy leading national companies or key national infrastructure.
Over the past one year, as the credit crisis has taken hold, Asian and Middle Eastern funds have spent billions snapping up stakes in leading Western financial institutions
Steinbrueck, who Der Spiegel said was also expected to meet the chief of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, planned to take a delegation of parliamentarians with him, seeking to improve understanding.
At nearly 55 years old, the KIA is the world's oldest sovereign wealth fund, managing about $225 billion.
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