From today's Arab News online:
Oil services giant Halliburton is moving its corporate HQ from Houston, Texas, to Dubai, catching the US by surprise and stirring Sen. Hillary Clinton to deem the move 'unpatriotic' and maybe tax-evasive. The corporation has insisted it will remain a US-incorporated company and pay US taxes, while enjoying the low income tax and pro-business environment of the Gulf emirate.
The move makes sense for a company which sees 40% of its income come from the Middle East. Not only is the oil sector booming, but Dubai is right next door to huge oil reserves in Saudi Arabia and the soon to be flung open oil industry in Iraq. Dubai is a testament to world-class business as a financial centre attracting blue-chip multinationals, and a hub for transportation, finance and communications. Its rulers must enjoy the irony of a top US corp. relocating there after US politicians last year forced Dubai Ports to sell its US ports operations because xenophobic Americans feared they couldn't trust the security of US ports to an Arab-owned company.
Halliburton has been mistrusted the world over when its KBR subsidiary won highly lucrative contracts to supply the US military in Iraq, where its overbilling the US Govt. by millions of dollars was widely publicised. The fact that the US Vice President, Dick Cheney, led Halliburton from 1995-2000 and is still receiving a deferred income from the company gives many observers the impression that Halliburton was just a tool of the Bush administration's Middle Eastern adventures.
Moving to Dubai may help to dispel such impressions, but Halliburton will have to work much harder to change its image of being a cold-hearted, greedy corporation, that managed to make record profits of $2.3bn last year, with revenues of $13bn. Whether true or not, the public believes that a large share of that profit came from its Iraq contract and this appals many Arabs, Muslims, and Americans who argued that the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq was unjust, brutal, and illegal.
Halliburton plans to spin off its KBR subsidiary - which handled the now-cancelled Iraq contract - in order to focus on the oil industry. That should help to improve the company's image, though it is doubtful that it will ever be able to shake off its perceived ties to Cheney and the US military. Dubai is the clear winner here, as Halliburton will create local jobs, pump money into the local economy, and bring the kind of corporate knowledge that has allowed it to remain one of the biggest and most successful corporations in America.
Oil services giant Halliburton is moving its corporate HQ from Houston, Texas, to Dubai, catching the US by surprise and stirring Sen. Hillary Clinton to deem the move 'unpatriotic' and maybe tax-evasive. The corporation has insisted it will remain a US-incorporated company and pay US taxes, while enjoying the low income tax and pro-business environment of the Gulf emirate.
The move makes sense for a company which sees 40% of its income come from the Middle East. Not only is the oil sector booming, but Dubai is right next door to huge oil reserves in Saudi Arabia and the soon to be flung open oil industry in Iraq. Dubai is a testament to world-class business as a financial centre attracting blue-chip multinationals, and a hub for transportation, finance and communications. Its rulers must enjoy the irony of a top US corp. relocating there after US politicians last year forced Dubai Ports to sell its US ports operations because xenophobic Americans feared they couldn't trust the security of US ports to an Arab-owned company.
Halliburton has been mistrusted the world over when its KBR subsidiary won highly lucrative contracts to supply the US military in Iraq, where its overbilling the US Govt. by millions of dollars was widely publicised. The fact that the US Vice President, Dick Cheney, led Halliburton from 1995-2000 and is still receiving a deferred income from the company gives many observers the impression that Halliburton was just a tool of the Bush administration's Middle Eastern adventures.
Moving to Dubai may help to dispel such impressions, but Halliburton will have to work much harder to change its image of being a cold-hearted, greedy corporation, that managed to make record profits of $2.3bn last year, with revenues of $13bn. Whether true or not, the public believes that a large share of that profit came from its Iraq contract and this appals many Arabs, Muslims, and Americans who argued that the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq was unjust, brutal, and illegal.
Halliburton plans to spin off its KBR subsidiary - which handled the now-cancelled Iraq contract - in order to focus on the oil industry. That should help to improve the company's image, though it is doubtful that it will ever be able to shake off its perceived ties to Cheney and the US military. Dubai is the clear winner here, as Halliburton will create local jobs, pump money into the local economy, and bring the kind of corporate knowledge that has allowed it to remain one of the biggest and most successful corporations in America.
