The Middle East

Hundreds of thousands of construction workers in Kuwait are busy building bridges, roads, homes, the region’s largest refinery, an expanded airport terminal and a new port. These are just some of the major projects being completed as the country works towards the New Kuwait 2035 vision. However, these developments are almost entirely driven by government spending and components of the Kuwait...

The government’s New Kuwait 2035 strategy has signalled ICT development as a key pillar that is expected to attract investment and boost the local economy. In 2016 telecoms accounted for 7.7% of non-oil revenue and 3.92% of total GDP at constant prices, according to the Central Statistical Bureau. Though its contribution to the non-oil sector grew to 8.2% in 2017, its GDP share dipped slightly to...

As Kuwait tries to curb its dependency on hydrocarbons, which accounted for over 90% of state revenues in 2017, other industries are coming into focus. Excluding refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel, manufacturing industries’ contribution to GDP rose by 6.2% in 2017 to $5.6bn, according to the central bank. Meanwhile, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel’s portion of GDP expanded by...

The health profile of the Kuwaiti population has changed significantly in the past several decades. Kuwaiti citizens, who account for around 30% of the population of just over 4.2m, have become more prone to non-communicable diseases (NCDs). While deaths from infectious diseases are posing less and less of a threat, NCDs – the four main categories of which are heart disease, cancers, diabetes and...

Kuwait and the wider Gulf have some of the youngest populations in the world, with one-third of the GCC’s population expected to be under the age of 25 by 2030. As such, ensuring that Kuwaiti youth are equipped with the skills to compete in the global marketplace has become one of the government’s main priorities. This is laid out in New Kuwait 2035, a bold government development plan...

This chapter contains an overview of the legal framework in which local and international investors operate in Kuwait, including a look at the incentives available for qualifying overseas investors and the changes to intellectual property protection framework. This chapter contains a viewpoint Alex Saleh, Partner, Al Tamimi & Co.