The Financial Times is reporting that Secreatary of Treasury Timothy Geithner has asked Saudi Arabia, the Middle East’s wealthiest and oil-rich nation, to increase its contributions to the International Monetary Fund in hopes of further propping up the fund’s ability to help struggling nations in the region. The primary purpose of Geithner’s trip to Saudi Arabia has been to assuage fears in the Saudi political hierarchy that the nation’s holdings in United States treasury bills are at risk given the debts amassed by multiple rounds of fiscal stimulus and emergency spending.

Geithner made a similar trip to China in May, reassuring the Chinese government as to the strength and resilience of the dollar. However, Saudi Arabia represents a country with different leverage on the world stage, given that it provides the greatest percentage of the world’s oil and represents the Arab world’s most advanced economy.

Even though Saudi Arabia instituted its own fiscal stimulus in response to last year’s global financial meltdown, “analysts said it was expected that Mr. Geithner would hope to persuade the kingdom to increase its contribution to the International Monetary Fund to help it support economies hardest hit by the financial crisis.”

At this year’s G-20 summit, over $750 billion was pledged to the I.M.F. to help shore up poorer nations hit hard by the collapse in credit markets, but more funding will be needed in the coming years. In a December 2008 article in the Financial Times, journalist Abeer Allam reported that “Saudi Arabia faces daunting social and economic challenges, with the largest population in the Arab Gulf, high unemployment and a growing lower-income population” – problems which echo those of the United States and other developed Western nations.

It remains to be seen whether the power structure in Saudi Arabia will heed the call to contribute more to the International Monetary Fund, but it’s safe to say that that decision hinges on the country’s confidence in the strength of the dollar.