The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in its World Investment Report 2009, that Kuwait sovereign fund assets shrank by $94 billion last year due to the economic meltdown. The report also said that four Gulf sovereign wealth funds, including Kuwait, lost a total of $350 billion last year.

Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), the Gulf state's sovereign wealth fund, however, denied the United Nations claim its assets slumped by $94 billion due to the global financial crisis. KIA acting managing director Othman Ibrahim Al-Issa said in a statement cited by the official KUNA news agency that the authority has asked the UN agency which reported the losses to rectify the mistake.Kuwaiti MPs said in February that KIA officials told a secret parliament session that the value of Kuwaiti investments abroad dropped by around $31 billion last year due to the global economic crisis. The MPs also said that questions were raised during the session about the small size of the reported loss and decided to ask the state Audit Bureau to ascertain that the figure was correct. KIA does not disclose its holdings but independent economic reports estimate the Kuwaiti assets at between $200 billion
and $230 billion, down from around $300 billion in March last year.

Also, KIA is considering opportunities in renewable energy, including potential investments in Italy, the fund's managing director and an Italian minister said yesterday. "It (the Kuwait Investment Authority) will not hesitate in investing in this new sector if the viability of these investments and long-term returns were proved," KUNA said citing KIA managing director Bader Al-Saad. He did not elaborate.

Saad is in Rome to meet Italian government officials and executives from companies including power producer Enel SpA and Finmeccanica SpA, KUNA said. Italy's foreign minister, who met Saad yesterday, said the KIA was keen on investing in Italy and was eyeing opportunities in energy and infrastructure. "There's big interest in investing in Italy. We're finalising the sectors with energy and infrastructure in the first place, and this is the first step of an important contact with the Kuwaiti fund and other
Gulf sovereign funds," Franco Frattini said.

Enel has said it would sell a 30 to 49 percent stake in its green energy unit via a private placement or a stock market listing. Investors, including Libya's sovereign wealth fund, infrastructure funds and private equity funds, have already expressed an interest. Enel had no comment on the report of the Kuwait meeting. Italy will have to double its renewable energy capacity and invest �50 billion ($73.3 billion) to meet the European Union's climate change targets for 2020, the chairman of its renewable ene
rgy body told Reuters on Monday. "The global crisis ... has created opportunities for us that were not available in the past," Saad said.

The KIA has not stopped investing despite the global financial crisis and still sees "promising" opportunities in the services, financial and real estate sectors which were affected by the economic downturn, he added. The KIA, which manages state assets in the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter, is investing across asset classes around the globe.

It has come under fire from some parliamentarians for investing $5 billion in US banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch last year before both stocks nosedived. Merrill has since been bought by Bank of America. The KIA was managing foreign assets worth about KD 49 billion ($170.9 billion) at Dec 31, two lawmakers said in February after a government briefing.