According to an analysis issued by the International Policy Digest website, that the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund is the first sovereign wealth fund of its kind in the world and represents the Kuwait Investment Authority. The fund was established in 1953 and its assets were formed from the profits resulting from the sale of Kuwaiti oil. The establishment of the fund is about preserving the national wealth and enabling Kuwait to move from an economy based on exporting oil to a newer and more stable source of income for Kuwait and its citizens.
Since 1953, which witnessed the birth of the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund, to the present day, there are now 91 sovereign wealth funds in the world, with total assets of more than $ 8.2 trillion, and the site said that the term sovereign wealth fund was first coined by Andrew Rozanov in an article under The title “Who Owns the Resources of Countries?”
The site said that sovereign wealth funds are state-owned investment funds or entities that are financed mainly through the surpluses they achieve in their balance of payments, the output of official foreign exchange operations, the proceeds from the sale of state lands to private sector institutions, or the rental income of state lands. For private companies or individuals, taxes levied on companies extracting mineral resources from state-owned lands, and surpluses and financial revenues generated from exports of natural and other resources in the country.
There are informal rules of conduct for sovereign wealth funds under the so-called Santiago Principles that seek to promote greater accountability for sovereign wealth funds, but commitment or compliance with this is voluntary and there is no mechanism to implement it. Refer to the Linaburg Maduel index of transparency, which measures the general transparency of wealth funds. Various sovereigns in the world.