The Middle East Economy

Global trade faces protectionist headwinds that are dampening the outlook for growth in the coming years. According to the World Trade Organisation, trade volumes grew by 4.7% in 2017 and are expected to have moderated slightly to 4.4% in 2018 and dip to 4% in 2019. Although this means growth will fall below the 4.8% average recorded since...

Firming oil prices have brought about an improvement in Saudi Arabia’s trade balance in 2018. The government’s longer-term ambition, however, is to protect itself from the uncertainty of the energy market by a diversifying the export base away from hydrocarbons. The Kingdom’s newly formulated economic strategy also aims to boost the level of...

Decades of growth in trade and foreign investment have made the economies of the world more interdependent than ever before. The production of goods and, increasingly, the provision of services has become fractured across borders as corporations integrate into regional and global value chains – a process reinforced by international trade and...

Alternative asset activity in Saudi Arabia is taking place across an increasingly diverse range of investment instruments. The Kingdom is a regional leader in mutual fund activity, with the deepest and most varied investment pool in the GCC. Meanwhile, in the venture capital arena, the domination of state-funded programmes is giving way to...

One of the most interesting trends in Saudi Arabia’s alternative investment sphere in 2018 was the broadening of the range of specialised investment vehicles in the market. Most of the sector-focused private equity and venture capital (VC) fund movements over recent years have targeted the technology sector, with managers searching for...