Kuwait Asks Assistance in Rebuilding : Westlake: The country’s ambassador urges executives to view the emirate as a market.

Ray D. Hinton makes and sells home water purifiers. On Friday, Kuwait’s ambassador to the United States encouraged the Newbury Park businessman to consider the ravaged country as a market.

“With all the damage that was done to their water supply, there’d certainly be a need for my product,” said Hinton, whose Aqua Man units filter pollutants from tap water.

Kuwaiti Ambassador Sheik Saud al Nasir al Sabah invited Hinton and other area executives to explore opportunities in his homeland during a seminar Friday at the Hyatt Westlake.

“We would like as many of you inside Kuwait to help in this process,” said Saud, adding that Americans are being given swift visa approval. “You should send a trade delegation from Ventura County to know you will have the business opportunities there.”

While reconstruction of its roads and utilities is under way, Kuwait has made little headway in refurbishing buildings and restocking warehouses cleared out by Iraqi troops. The country needs wallpaper and light fixtures every bit as much as automobiles and medical equipment, speakers said Friday.

“They need a lot of consumer-oriented goods,” said Peter Tam, a Bank of A. Levy vice president who would like to handle payments between Kuwait and its American suppliers.

Still, Kuwait “is simply not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” said Gerald Glenn, group president for Fluor Daniel, an Irvine-based international engineering and construction firm. “At its worst, it’s a volatile, dangerous and hostile place, and you really have to know what you’re doing to work there.”

Saud appeared at the seminar--sponsored by the California Central Coast World Trade Center Assn.--at the invitation of U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley). Gallegly was among a congressional group that Saud accompanied on a tour of Kuwait shortly after Iraq’s withdrawal.

The ambassador said his government is paying for public projects and the cost of fighting the oil field infernos, leaving 60% of the rebuilding costs to private companies and property owners.

“The reception for the American businessman in my country is tremendous,” Saud said. “We are trying to hold back your competitors across the ocean.”

The window of opportunity for Americans may not be open for long, said Stan Patterson, chairman of the Pacific division of the U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce.

“The feeling of gratitude for America’s role (in the war) has translated into leaning toward American suppliers,” Patterson said. “But normal business practices will eventually assert themselves.”

Among the companies that sent representatives to Friday’s seminar was an Oxnard consulting firm seeking to administer uniform industrial-safety standards for foreign contractors working in Kuwait and an Agoura Hills executive search firm that plans to send a representative to Kuwait City to help companies hire environmental engineers.

Ibrahim J. Selim, an executive with Teledyne Electronics in Newbury Park, said he was there Friday’s to get a sense of the progress of the rebuilding effort.

Selim said he had been negotiating to sell military identification systems to the Kuwaiti government when Iraq invaded last August. He said a French competitor also was bidding for the contract, now in limbo.

“Defense is an essential part of the rebuilding effort,” Selim said. “We just want to be ready.”

Eugene E. Charbonneau, general manager of Challenge Fire Protection Inc. in Ventura, said he would like to provide automatic fire-sprinkler systems for Kuwait’s industrial, commercial and residential buildings.

“We will probably wind up going through a major contractor who has the wherewithal, as opposed to dealing direct with the Kuwaitis,” Charbonneau said.

Bill Barbee of Gallant Solutions, a Ventura employment agency, has less lofty goals that won’t require globe-trotting to drum up business.

“We could help companies fill positions vacated by people they send over there,” Barbee said.