All Countries and All Sectors

What more can local banks do to assist in Kuwait’s economic diversification, and which sectors have the most potential for accelerating diversification?

Kuwait benefits from an advantageous location in the Northern Gulf that provides convenient access to major markets in Europe and Asia. The country’s trade and investment profile has long been dominated by oil, with revenue from its vast reserves used to fund overseas investment, generating sustainable long-term returns and safeguarding future prosperity. As Kuwait emerges...

To leverage its location and proximity to major Gulf markets, Kuwait plans to develop economic zones to attract investment, and support trade and industry clustering. While trade was temporarily disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, exports rebounded significantly in 2021. The Middle East currently accounts for a large portion of Kuwait’s external trade, with the UAE and Saudi...

In the first high-level meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) since 2017, representatives from member countries met in Geneva in June 2022 for the 12th Ministerial Conference, where they signed a landmark series of agreements on food exports, illegal fishing, intellectual property (IP) rights for Covid-19 vaccines and Customs duties on electronic transactions.

While small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have historically made a relatively small contribution to Kuwait’s GDP, policymakers are eyeing ways to stimulate their expansion to foster a more dynamic private sector under the Kuwait National Development Plan (KNDP) 2020-25. By doing so, they hope to generate diverse new engines of growth and job creation, and reduce the...