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After a year characterised by low trading volumes and a horizontal main index, the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) opened 2017 as the fastest-growing market in the world. A number of factors combine to make the KSE a destination of interest for investors in 2017, chief among them being new management, which has begun to implement an ambitious reform programme. With the ultimate goal of securing an upgrade for the nation’s bourse from frontier- to emerging-market status, regulatory reform is set to dominate the agenda over 2017 and 2018. This timely overhaul of the exchange’s rules and processes will tackle the KSE’s twin challenges of low liquidity and scant foreign interest head-on. This chapter contains an interview with Khaled Abdulrazzaq Al Khaled, Vice-Chairman and CEO, Boursa Kuwait.

Like most GCC economies, Kuwait is well known for its buy-side investment activity – a result of its historic ability to transform oil revenues into global investments aimed at securing future economic sustainability. However, as the nation enters a third year of lower oil prices, Kuwait’s attractiveness as a destination for inward investment has come under increasing scrutiny. The government is eyeing global capital flows to support its bold development strategy, and recent years have seen a number of innovations aimed at attracting foreign investment to the country. Challenges remain, however, and Kuwait still has progress to make on international ease of doing business indicators. In the meantime, falling oil revenues have highlighted the nation’s dependence on a single export category, and therefore diversifying its export base and removing barriers to trade have also emerged as central priorities.

In a lower oil price environment such as the one that has persisted since late 2014, banking sectors in the GCC find themselves under heightened scrutiny. Kuwait is no exception, but where other banking sectors in the region have been compelled to face sizeable cutbacks in government spending, the nation’s deep reserves have enabled it to defend the development pipeline on which so much of the industry’s business depends. Although challenges through 2016 put pressures on profits and credit growth, these were not seen as threats to sector stability. Nevertheless, challenges remain. The recent economic downturn has highlighted the sector’s dependence on government spending, while an increasingly comprehensive regulatory environment is starting to affect some of the industry’s key ratios. Exploiting untapped areas of the economy and seeking new efficiencies are therefore emerging as the key priorities for the industry in the year ahead. This chapter contains an interview with Mohammad Y Al Hashel, Governor, Central Bank of Kuwait.

With billions of dinars worth of short-term spending plans and a new vision for economic transformation over the next two decades, Kuwait offers opportunities for investment across a range of sectors. While the country adopted a save and prosper approach during the oil boom years of 2010-14, the prolonged reduction in oil prices experienced since then has coincided with a renewed appetite for investment and reform that bodes well for private sector players. Funding mechanisms such as public-private partnership agreements, as well as capital projects funded by state-owned enterprises, are set to provide opportunities for international firms with the government actively seeking to attract foreign direct investment and highlighting the ICT, renewable energy and finance as sectors it would like to see developed by using international expertise over the following two decades. This chapter contains interviews with Khaled Mahdi, Secretary-General, Supreme Council for Planning and Development and Sheikh Meshaal Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah, Director General, Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority.

This chapter examines Thailand’s legal system, focusing on incentives available to encourage export activities, analysis of company law and details of permits required for foreign companies. It also contains a viewpoint from David Lyman, Chairman and Chief Values Officer, Tilleke & Gibbins.