The changing nature of Saudi exports tells the story of the Kingdom’s efforts to diversify its economy. Encouragingly, non-oil exports have been growing more quickly than oil exports in recent years, though oil still makes up a significant majority of the country’s external sales, reflecting the size of the challenge facing the Kingdom with...
The transition to a new era of foreign participation in the Kingdom’s bourse, the Saudi Stock Exchange, also known as the Tadawul, has been a keenly anticipated event in the region’s financial markets. However, this is only the latest step in a longer process of market reform, where the exchange has evolved from a single-product market to an...
Trade relations between the GCC and Asian economies have been growing steadily for some time now. Recent developments suggest, moreover, that they are set to expand further over the next decade. While there are some risks associated with Asian markets, the GCC as a bloc is deepening its commitment to the region. This is signalled by a number...
Following a difficult period for the international shipping market, in 2012 the container route from Shanghai to the Gulf through Dubai saw the second-highest rate of freight growth in the entire Asian region. This was part of an emerging trend of the maturation of GCC-Asia trade. A relationship that was once just based on meeting demand for...
The Saudi economy has been on an upward growth trajectory in recent years, expanding by 2.7% in 2013 and 3.6% in 2014. This has been primarily driven by the non-oil sector, which has grown at a rate of at least 5% per year in the decade to 2014. For its part, the oil and gas sector also saw modest improvement in 2014, expanding by 0.8% year-on...
The push amongst GCC states to invest in Africa came about in earnest following the 2007-08 global food price crisis, and in those days targeted agricultural land and strategic commodity production. Agribusiness, sovereign wealth funds and other agri-investment vehicles were the main players at the time. Primarily state-led, the investments at...
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