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A founding member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Kuwait and other members together hold over 80% of the world’s proven oil reserves, of which Kuwait has 101.5bn barrels, or 6%. After the Second World War its role in newly global energy markets gradually increased, with production growing to 1m by 1955. Following independence in 1961, the country spent two decades bringing its energy resources under the government’s purview by acquiring shares in oil operations. In 1980 the authorities founded Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) to bring all state-owned oil operations under a single organisation. In the resulting structure, KPC manages the sector through its subsidiaries, which handle upstream, downstream, transport and petrochemicals operations. The Supreme Petroleum Council meanwhile is charged with overseeing all oil-related decisions, and the council includes the ministers of finance, oil, foreign affairs, and commerce and industry, as well as the state minister for Cabinet affairs. This chapter contains interviews with Mohammad Ghazi Al Mutairi, CEO, Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC); and Jamal Jaafar, CEO, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC).

Located at the northern section of the Gulf, Kuwait lies on the historical trade routes that have for millennia linked Mesopotamia, Arabia and Persia to the Gulf and Indian Ocean trade networks. The country already boasts a quite sophisticated infrastructure, but as part of diversification plans set out in Kuwait Vision 2035, stakeholders have laid out plans to transform the country into a regional hub and global player in transport and logistics. Despite a reduction in oil export revenues, the government has been vocal about its commitment to move ahead with capital expenditures, including an airport terminal, a port facility, a series of roads and highways upgrades, an urban metro system and Kuwait’s segment of the region-wide GCC railway. This chapter contains an interview with Sheikh Yousef Al Abdullah Al Sabah Al Nasser Al Sabah, Director-General, Kuwait Ports Authority; and President, Arab Sea Ports Federation.

Despite the slowing regional economy and strong competition among local players, Kuwait’s insurance sector has seen steady growth in recent years, due in large part to rising demand for non-life products and increased activity in the takaful (Islamic insurance) segment. In 2015 the industry brought in an estimated KD315m ($1.04bn) in total gross written premiums (GWPs), up 4.3% from KD302m ($998.9m) in 2014. Continued uptake of new insurance policies in Kuwait is in line with regional insurance trends. Between 2006 and the end of 2014 the GCC insurance industry more than tripled its overall premiums, with total GWPs growing from $6.4bn to $22.2bn, yielding a compound annual growth rate of 6.4%.

Driven by rising demand for new sources of financing in the face of weak oil prices, Kuwait’s Islamic financial services (IFS) sector is increasingly considered to be a core component of the nation’s development. The industry’s steadily improving profile is largely a result of the government’s efforts to shore up the sector’s reputation over the past decade, most recently by rolling out new sukuk (Islamic bond) regulations in November 2015. As a consequence, local Islamic banks, investment companies and sharia-compliant insurers have gained market share at a rapid pace, in the process turning Kuwait into one of the world’s leading IFS markets. This chapter contains an interview with Mazin Al Nahedh, CEO, Kuwait Finance House

More than six years of strategic planning came to fruition in late April 2016, when Boursa Kuwait Securities Company, a private firm established in 2014, took over management of the Kuwait Stock Exchange. The move was widely understood to indicate the beginning of a new era for Kuwait’s capital market. This shift follows on from a series of major reforms initiated by the passage of the 2010 Capital Markets Law, under which the sector regulator – the Capital Markets Authority – and other state entities have worked to transform the bourse, with the long-term objective of boosting the market’s performance and overall value. This chapter contains an interview with Nayef Al Hajraf, Chairman and Managing Director, Capital Markets Authority (CMA).

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.