Supporting the Gulf boom with trade finance

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01 November 2007

The last five years has seen phenomenal economic growth across the Arabian Gulf backed by high oil prices and shrewd infrastructure investment. Oliver O'Connell looks at how trade finance techniques are a vital cog in sustaining this boom – fueling consumer, municipal and industrial growth – and the way in which the business is developing.

There was a time not so long ago when regular visitors to the Gulf states would take time to visit a new hotel or shopping mall that had sprung up from the desert since their last trip. It is now more likely that should these visitors want to check out what was new, they would not know where to start and would find the choice not limited to new hotels or malls, but rather whole new sections of town.

Kick-started by oil revenues, the move to diversify economies away from domination by a single industry has been breathtaking. Led by Dubai, a city that prides itself on having been a trading port long before the discovery of oil, the region has been pushing into new areas that have stimulated, both directly and indirectly, the growth of trade finance. By investing first in transport and logistical infrastructure, governments smoothed out the...

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