Almost 15 years after it was created, Ras Al Khaimah Free Trade Zone (RAK FTZ) launched a global awareness drive in 2014 to try to entice new businesses. In just over a year, RAK FTZ delegates visited Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Spain, the UK, Brazil, US, Italy, the Philippines, Australia and Japan. This followed a successful...
On December 31, 2014 every citizen in Kuwait became a partial owner of the Kuwait Health Assurance Company (KHAC), a new private sector provider of medical insurance. Some 1.15m shares of the company – worth around KD230m ($792.4m) in total paid-up capital – were eventually distributed among nationals by the Kuwait Clearing Company, which...
Kuwait is set to witness significant demographic changes over the coming decades, with far-reaching consequences for the local pharmaceuticals industry. High birth rates and continued immigration mean that the population is increasing in absolute terms and is set to reach 4m by 2020 and 6.3m by 2050, according to estimates by the UN’s Economic...
As part of Kuwait’s efforts to expand and diversify its economy, the country has moved to invest in its infrastructure capacity, while a programme to boost oil production levels has stimulated growth in the petrochemical and construction segments. Alongside continued moves to improve the skills of the workforce, as well as to nurture small and...
Like much of Kuwait’s financial services industry, the insurance sector has posted solid expansion in recent years on the back of growth in a handful of key areas, including takaful (sharia-compliant insurance) and other non-life segments. In 2014 Kuwait’s insurance sector as a whole brought in an estimated KD303m ($1.04bn) in gross...
Although Saudi Arabia’s policy shift on self-sufficiency and wheat production over the last five years has garnered the most attention, the government has instituted a number of other plans to mitigate the effects of agricultural production on the country’s water reserves. One of the most important moves in this respect has been the emphasis...
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