Gulf Markets Insight & Opportunities

By Steve Parker, Owner & Director – Steve Parker ICD (International Company Development)
 
In previous issues of The Business Influencer, I mentioned how my 40 years of active exporting and international trade experiences proved an original belief, that relationships with and understanding of people, companies and cultures is the key to strategic global growth.
In issue 6 - I promised my insight into the Gulf region, where in truth I have learned and continued to learn, how business can really be discovered, nurtured and grown through relationship development.
 
I first went to the Gulf region – for this article meaning Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman, in the early 1980’s. Doing business in the region has a habit of both making you feel very old and stimulates you to feel very young, often on a daily basis?!

To illustrate age, when I first went, there were often only one or two hotels that business people from ove...