May 14, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 11, 1424

PARIS, May 13: French entrepreneur Bertrand Cluzel says that if all goes to plan he should be producing by the end of the year a new soft drink, especially destined for the Gulf.

Produced by a Franco-Qatari joint venture being set up in association with a local businessman, the new drink, which will be non-alcoholic, will be composed of tea, malt and mint, and will be especially destined for the Muslim market, eventually hopes Mr Cluzel, for all of the region, indeed the Arab world.

The idea for the drink germinated a year ago, and was developed during the recent visit to Doha of a group of 70 French businessmen, among them Mr Cluzel, who accompanied French state secretary for external trade Renaud Dutreil on a trip ostensibly undertaken to “re-balance” France’s relations with the Gulf, also allow the Gulf states like Qatar to restabilize their own ties with the United States.

A Qatari businessman, Abdul Rahman Al-Ansari, was quickly interested in the idea and says he is looking into the possibility of producing the new drink by next fall, indeed is developing plans to build a factory which would bottle the new soft drink in sufficient quantities to allow its export to the entire Gulf.

As for state secretary Dutreil, he has advised Cluzel to be patient, and that, in his estimation, the French entrepreneur has a fifty-fifty chance of seeing his beverage produced and eventually exported, but “you’ll have to wait six months before receiving a final answer,” Dutreil has reportedly told Cluzel.