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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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To cut the financing links of the international terrorism is one of the main goals of the present US administration. In order to do so, American authorities are ready to put under surveillance or even to block the bank accounts of the suspicious organizations. "Everyone must choose - to deal with the terrorists or to deal with us", said the US president George W. Bush initiating the campaign of breaking the terrorist financial networks. The war of course is limiting the freedom of the financial transactions and the proposed by FBI profile of the supposed terrorist "money launderers" force many Arab multimillionaires to take their money from the US and to put them into more safe places around the world.

None really can believe that some Saudi oil sheikh making money mainly dealing with international companies on Wallstreet will knowingly finance a group aiming to destroy his business partners. But what if his money given to a charity foundation or put into mutual fund happen together with some other money that attract the interest of the FBI? In this case all of them will be blocked until further investigation. If we talk about several thousands of dollars for a multimillionaire it's one thing, if we talk about billions it's completely another story. Thus in order to be sure that nothing can happen with their money, many Saudi and other Arab investors are pulling out of the US.

Where this money (investments) can go leaving America? There are several options - Middle East (where this money has originated), the other major financial centers of the world - Europe, Japan or maybe in some of so called "save heavens" for money laundering around the world. The Arab investors are considered to be very conservative to put under risk their investments and bring in huge amount in countries like Malta, Cyprus or Cayman Islands. These places are ideal for small fortunes, not for the oil billions. On the other hand, Japan presents an example of a country with zero interest on deposits and highly complicated and regulated financial system, which also isn't very attractive for eventual short-term foreign investors. The Middle East is also not ready to accept in the short period huge amounts (otherwise the money couldn't have gone to America and Europe in the past) and in the most countries of the region the financial systems and services are far from the western standards.

Thus the ideal places to move Arab money from America remain the big financial centers in Europe, mainly the City of London, the Eurozone and the Switzerland. The trick here is that these centers offer solutions for different kind of investors. The City like NYC can be very useful for those who prefer to take higher than average risks in exchange for higher returns. On the other hand, Switzerland is notorious for its rather conservative approach, which puts the security of the deposits as a main goal. The Eurozone with its 12 member states offers the option of quickly and inexpensively moving the money from one country to another within the zone.

Some of the money that Arabs will bring in Europe will be invested in securities, but some will go into real estate, which ultimately will appreciate the local markets and the main beneficiary of this process to be London.

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