growth in Middle East

The Gulf region is the heart of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and most of the prosperous oil sector is in government and private hands. However, high-growth areas of the economy including the construction, finance and service sectors are increasingly opening up to public equity markets. "Generally people think that the Gulf region is only about oil but lately 50 per cent of the GDP growth is coming from the non-oil sector."

The Gulf region has been able to weather the global equity sell off fairly well. Saudi Arabia is the largest member country in the MSCI GCC Index with a weighting of nearly 60 per cent. Financial services - including banks and real estate - is the largest publicly traded sector in the index at just over 50 per cent, followed by materials at 25.7 per cent. Other member countries include Kuwait (20 per cent), United Arab Emirates (14 per cent), Qatar (5.3 per cent), Oman (1.5 per cent) and Bahrain (0.5 per cent).