Summary
Twenty years ago, the Emirate of Dubai’s main thoroughfare was mostly sand. Now it is one of the world’s most modern urban landscapes. Dubai is at the heart of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a region that houses an abundance of three of the great drivers of the 21st-century global economy: hydrocarbons, financial services, and young people. No surprise, then, that the GCC—which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—has witnessed an astonishing real GDP growth of 65% since 1998. Currently valued at $1.6 trillion, the GCC economy is projected to exceed $2 trillion by 2020.
In the West, the GCC is perhaps most often associated with wealthy oil sheiks: Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Oman all contain areas with some of the highest proportions of millionaires in the world, many of whom display their wealth conspicuously. But while luxury goods are particularly successful in the GCC, the retail sector in the region is growing healthily across all wealth bands; many analysts predict a continuation of the current growth rate of 6-8% as the retail market reaches $270bn by 2016, with Saudi Arabia and UAE the lead drivers in the expansion.
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