Ed Koch, the colourful and often controversial former mayor of New York City, made it a practice as he walked the streets of his city to stop and ask average citizens “How am I doing?” in an effort to learn how they viewed the performance of his administration and its delivery of services. Asking and listening are always useful exercises. Sometimes the results can be surprising. More often then not the results of such an effort affirm what we have assumed to be true, providing data to validate our assumptions as well as additional valuable insights. A recent survey of business executives in the Arab Gulf countries is a case in point.
Conducted by Zogby International (ZI), the survey found that optimism has returned to the business community in the Gulf, a sign that the region may have turned a corner following the global economic downturn of 2008-2009. Overall six in 10 executives now say that business conditions have improved in their countries, with more than eight in 10 expressing confidence that conditions will improve even further in the next two years.
These are but a few of the findings from the survey of “C-Suite” executives in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, which ZI carried out for Oliver Wyman (an international management consulting firm with a strong presence throughout the Middle East). It is the second in a continuing series of semi-annual measurements of business confidence in the Gulf region.
The mood was positive in all three countries covered in the survey, with the most notable changes occurring in the UAE. Business leaders in that country were especially hard hit by what one prominent Emirati businessman referred to as the “bursting of Dubai’s utopic bubble.” It is significant, therefore, that while in our October 2009 survey 57 per cent of respondents in the UAE reported that their economy was in decline, today that figure has dropped to just 39pc; and while in October only 45pc of business leaders in the UAE anticipated an improvement in business conditions in the country during the next two years, now 74pc are optimistic. [Read More]
