Iraq Freeze Expected to Have Little Effect : Assets: Few nations have large financial stakes in that country or in Kuwait.

Iraq’s move to freeze foreign assets is expected to have a limited effect on its foes because few outside nations, including the United States, have a large financial stake in Iraq or Kuwait, analysts said Wednesday.

“It’s primarily symbolic,” said J. R. AbiNader, president of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce in Washington. “Most countries don’t have assets in Iraq or Kuwait.”

Iraqi government policy has long restricted Western investments, although in recent years the Baghdad regime has moved to ease the ban in an effort to boost agriculture, tourism and other industries.

Still, there was virtually no U.S. direct investment in Iraq at the end of 1989, according to the Commerce Department. Similarly, U.S. firms actually owed more money to wealthy Kuwait than they had invested there last year.

But Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may have a pragmatic reason for taking control of foreign assets: to establish a legal basis to plunder Kuwait. Since the Aug. 2 invasion, Iraqi soldiers have been accused of taking automobiles, jewelry, equipment and other goods from Kuwait.

“You’re talking about everything from furniture to oil rigs to spare parts for planes,” said an observer with numerous business connections in the region.

And even if the overall effect is limited, Iraq’s action represents yet another blow to Western firms that were conducting business in the Middle East before the conflict.

“To be honest with you, we really don’t know what it means,” said Texaco spokesman Dave Dickson, whose company operates an Iraqi refinery that has been shut since Aug. 6 because of the international trade embargo. The refinery, which processed 50,000 barrels of oil a day, is located on Iraq’s side of the “neutral zone” along the border with Kuwait. Dickson would not estimate how much Iraq’s action could cost Texaco.

Bechtel, the large engineering and construction firm based in San Francisco, declined to identify specific projects in which it is involved in Iraq for fear of jeopardizing its employees there. Like some other U.S. firms active in the country, it primarily has provided services and has not made extensive investments in equipment and facilities.

“Obviously there would be financial reimbursement for our services that would be due,” said Mike Kidder, a spokesman for Bechtel.

U.S. government officials are seeking clarification of Iraq’s new law, which was reported by the Iraqi News Agency as a seizure of assets aimed at countries that have frozen Iraqi assets abroad. The United States and Britain froze Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets immediately after the Aug. 2 invasion. Other countries, including all European Community nations, quickly followed suit.

Both Kuwait and Iraq traditionally have been less than wide open to non-Arab foreign investment. Kuwait, for example, has prohibited real estate investments and allowed Westerners to retain only minority stakes in local businesses, according to the Commerce Department.

About two years ago, Iraq announced a plan to allow some new Western investment as a way to stimulate its own economic development. But the response had remained cautious and slow--on both sides.

“They said they would consider proposals for joint ventures on a case-by-case basis, but I don’t know of any that were ever approved,” said Marshall W. Wiley, president of the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum, a Washington trade association with about 70 U.S. members.

Staff writer Jesus Sanchez in Los Angeles contributed to this report.