Retail

Ranked as one of the world’s leading destinations for retail investment, Saudi Arabia is in many respects unrivalled in the Gulf. With a young and rapidly growing consumer base of some 29m people, the Kingdom is the obvious point of entry for retailers looking to start branching out into other promising markets in the wider Middle East region. Indeed, pessimistic forecasts for Saudi Arabia’s retail sector are hard to come by at present. Sales in the sector as a whole are expected to grow annually by 8.6% in 2013, rising to 10.2% in 2015 and 2016. On the supply side, total retail space is continuing to grow as construction proceeds on new development.