The United Arab Emirates is hoping to build on its growing reputation as a business hub with a law designed to boost its credentials as a regional centre for arbitration, an increasingly popular method of dispute resolution. Kit Gillet reports.

Saudi Arabia’s economy is changing as taxes on expat workers fuel an exodus, while the relaxation of driving rules is giving women more employment opportunities. Together with developing sectors such as entertainment and home ownership, this is providing local banks with plenty of opportunities, as James King reports.

Saudi Arabia is undergoing vast social and economic reforms, aimed at reducing its dependence on oil, providing employment for women and the young, and emerging as a regional capital markets hub. James King looks at the progress being made so far.

A key component of Saudi Arabia's wide-ranging reforms include modernising the economy, and the Capital Market Authority, led by Mohammed El-Kuwaiz, is in the forefront of driving this change. James King reports.

As Saudi Arabia pushes on with reforms designed to make it a regional investment powerhouse, Ibrahim AlOmar, governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, talks to James King about the part the licensing body will play. 

While a global deal to cut oil production has helped to rebalance the market, Kuwait, along with other oil-reliant countries, must now look to what happens when the deal ends. Kit Gillet reports.

Dr Meshaal Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah, director-general of the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority, discusses the country’s plans to cut bureaucracy and its ambitions to be a regional business hub.

Mohammad Al-Hashel, governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait, tells James King how a focus on shoring up capital adequacy has enabled Kuwaiti banks to withstand the pressures of the low oil price environment.

Kuwait is positioning itself as a future regional financial, cultural and institutional hub, forging ahead with infrastructure mega-projects and developing private sector investment – apparently unbowed by disputes at home and between its Gulf neighbours. James King reports.

Kuwaiti banks are in ebullient mood, reporting both decent profits and healthy capital adequacy levels. But while government spending promises further growth opportunities, competition for customers is heating up in a crowded market, as James King reports.