The Middle East Economy

With the spectre of the global economic slowdown still looming over advanced economies, investors weary of waiting for the long anticipated financial rebound might do well to look to emerging markets for potentially attractive yields. Four years on from the credit crisis, advanced economies are still lagging behind global...

Looking to safeguard the county’s security in a tumultuous region, Saudi Arabia’s spending on defence continually ranks among the highest components of the country’s annual budget. While military expenditures as a proportion of the entire budget has fallen in recent years, defence and security spending accounted for 30.8% of the...

As Islam’s holiest city, Makkah has an economy that enjoys extraordinarily high demand from the many millions of Muslim pilgrims who visit it each year. With pilgrim numbers expected to nearly double between 2008 and 2019, the real estate, infrastructure, hospitality and retail sectors are among those most likely to benefit. All...

Restricted by regulatory uncertainty and underdevelopment over the past two decades, the Saudi Arabian real estate market is poised for a breakout in the coming years as long-awaited mortgage law reforms and more than a million new units planned for construction look set to transform the domestic market.

Hoteliers are looking to benefit from the extraordinarily high demand created by Makkah’s continuing flow of pilgrims, who represent 90% of the city’s hotel guests. The demand stems not only from the fact that pilgrim numbers look set to increase, but also from a government drive to improve health and safety standards during the...