Trade & Investment

With strong foreign reserves, a rapidly improving investment framework and a major state-led development programme under way, Kuwait is well positioned to attract growing levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade in the coming years. While the government has cut back on current spending recently, capital expenditure has continued apace and is forecast to grow in the coming years. Furthermore, due in part to incentives put in place by the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority, established in 2013 as part of an ongoing overhaul of the FDI framework, much of this expenditure is expected to come from private firms, either directly or in the form of public-private partnerships. Indeed, in 2015 and early 2016 a handful of multinationals moved to take advantage of Kuwait’s new investment environment, with positive implications for future activity. On the trade front, oil exports are down and a relatively strong Kuwaiti dinar (compared to regional currencies) has limited non-oil export gains in 2015-16, though in the fourth quarter of 2015 these posted an increase for the first time in a year.

This chapter contains an interview with Yousef Mohammed Al Ali, Minister of Commerce and Industry.