http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory. ... ss/3325652

Aug. 25, 2005, 9:50PM



Sept. 11 fostered financial shift
Gulf Arab states benefit from crude prices, investments
By JIM KRANE
Associated Press

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - In the United States, the Sept. 11 attacks are seen as the catalyst for a period of fear, war and economic worry.

But in the oil-rich Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, Sept. 11 is increasingly viewed as the event that kicked off a galloping economic boom, when Arabs divested from America and reinvested at home.

Arab investors pulled tens of billions of dollars out of the United States. They were angered by perceived American hostility toward Arabs. They worried their assets would be frozen by U.S. counterterror measures. And U.S. markets happened to be plummeting while economies in the Gulf were on the upswing, buoyed by rising oil prices. The results have been spectacular.

Since late 2001, economies in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries â€â€