Doing business in Kuwait

Kuwait is one of the luckiest countries in the world a small country with a small population sitting on a huge reserve of oil. Not surprisingly this has made Kuwait very wealthy. It has also made Kuwait one of the most desirable destinations for companies looking to do business overseas. There is lots of opportunity to do business in Kuwait if you know what you are getting into.

The reason that you would want to do business in Kuwait is obvious, it is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Despite its small size Kuwait is a major player in the world of petroleum production. Combine this with a small population and the result is one of the highest per-capita GDP's in the world. This obviously makes Kuwait an ideal investment opportunity and an ideal place to do business. The problem that you might encounter is that there is so much competition from other companies looking to do business in Kuwait that it might be hard to break into the market.

There no special rules that affect foreign companies doing business in Kuwait. There are no restrictions on foreign ownership of a business or on importing and exporting of currency. In theory, and by and large in practice there is no difference between a foreign company and a local company under the law. In fact the government of Kuwait has made an effort to encourage foreign companies to set up shop. Mainly they do this because the small size of the population makes it difficult to take advantage of the countries petroleum wealth without outside help.

While there are great opportunities to do business in Kuwait there are also some challenges that you are going to have to overcome. The biggest one is cost, it is very expensive to run a business in Kuwait. Infrastructure is expensive and finding local employees is going to be nearly impossible. With a high cost of living it is going to be very expensive to recruit employees to go to Kuwait. That is assuming you can find them at all. There aren't a lot of people, especially skilled employees who want to live in Kuwait.

The biggest issue that you are likely to face when it comes to doing business in Kuwait is simply the different culture. Things tend to move slower and you can't rush people, things will get done when they get done. This can be frustrating but it is the way it works in Kuwait and really the Middle East as a whole. Kuwaiti's also tend to prefer to business with people they know so you may have to spend some time building a relationship with somebody before you get down to business. And like all Middle Eastern countries if you are want to get anything done you will need to pay small bribes to endless officials. The amounts will be small but it is a nuisance, it's just part of the culture.