Business opportunities in Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is transforming itself as one of the world’s most competitive economies, and therefore, one of most lucrative markets for strategic investment. It is the largest free market economy in the Middle East and North Africa holding 25% share of the total Arab GDP. The Kingdom`s geographic location provides easy access to export markets in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Saudi Arabia has a vast number of competitive advantages in many strategic sectors at regional and global levels, which yield significantly higher returns on investment. Of course, it is no surprise that Saudi Arabia is ranked first in regard to prices of energy provided for investment projects. As such, Saudi Arabia continues to be a natural choice for investors in all energy intensive industries.
But the competitive advantages in today’s Saudi Arabia run much deeper than just energy. It’s about creating a world-class business environment that combines an ease of conducting business with low costs. It’s about unfettered access to regional markets and financial services.
Financially speaking, investment in Saudi Arabia realizes high profit ratios for local, foreign and shared projects, with low risk exposures, and a simple form of taxes and property registration fees. The Kingdom currently occupies the fifth rank regarding tax liabilities and fourth in property registration costs, according to business performance reports 2006/ 2007 issued by the International Bank.
In addition to the Kingdom’s strong economic and financial climate for investment, one of the country’s strongest advantages and incentives for foreign investment, is its people. It has a continuously expanding domestic market (annual population growth of 3.5 percent), which is adding to a young and consuming population with strong buying power. The majority of Saudi Arabia population is young, with 45% of the country under 15 years of age. Recognizing this as the country’s greatest potential asset, the Government has spent billions of dollars towards actively improving the human resources development pattern to better provide for the economic boom set to continue in Saudi Arabia for the near future. All of this provides investors with more opportunities to select the highest caliber labor for their projects.
