Trade Winds - Saudi Arabia Resources

Saudi Arabia’s Competitive Landscape

Extremely competitive and maybe not suitable for smaller companies that cannot risk diminished/slow cash flow.

Saudi Arabia is looking for long-term partners for Vision 2030 marquee projects and technology transfer to develop indigenous industries – and they want it all at bargain-basement prices. Increasingly, willingness to invest is the price of entry into this market, and competitor nations like China, India, Britain, and those from the EU are playing ball and increasing their market penetration.

In parallel, the Kingdom is competing with the UAE and the rest of the Gulf to attract this investment, and given that KSA is the largest GCC market, they are making progress on this front, e.g., this year’s announcement that all foreign companies must relocate their GCC headquarters to Riyadh or risk losing Saudi government tenders. Increasingly, Saudi Arabia is putting new conditions on what it takes to do business here, and increasingly, companies from competitor nations are snapping to.

Late payment/slow payment and IP protection are chronic problems in KSA. U.S. companies should be prepared to compete in this context and to sustain operations with slow KSA cash flow.