(MENAFN- Arab Times) Kuwait has a lucrative business environment for foreign investors to ultimately see economic and human development, thus honoring His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah's vision to turn Kuwait to a global financial and commercial hub.
Kuwait 2035 vision aims to transform the country into a world class financial and commercial hub, with private sector leading economic activities, fostering competitiveness, increasing productivity, supported by viable public institutions, while maintaining deep rooted values and national identity, towards achieving balanced economic and human development, supported by adequate infrastructure, legal framework, and enabling business environment.
Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA) has been meeting foreign investors to explain new laws and business environment to encourage them to do business in the country.
"The basis for conducting investment and business in Kuwait has changed significantly," US Ambassador to Kuwait Douglas Silliman said, referring primarily to foreign investors' 100 percent ownership of companies.
He said American giant computer company, IBM, would launch its Kuwait subsidiary office next week, offering a variety of information technology-related services to Kuwait-based organizations.
Now with the 100 percent ownership, it will be "easy for them (companies) to bring technology, investment and financing to ease the burden on the Kuwaiti government, and take advantage of projects put forward by Kuwait five-year plan 2015-2020," Silliman said in an interview with KUNA.
KDIPA Director General Sheikh Mishal Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, in remarks to National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. on May 12, touted Kuwait's new "promising legal framework" passed in 2013 € known as Law No. 116.
Sheikh Mishal, accompanied by Ambassador Silliman in his US trip, said Kuwait was improving transparency for potential investors, as well as providing a low corporate tax rate set at 15 percent, and competitive factor costs in a country with a high income per capita € a figure the World Bank puts at $52,197 for 2013.
"We did media and a number of smaller meetings with senior executives" to talk about KDIPA laws and "opportunities for American companies to do business in Kuwait," said Silliman. "Essentially these (legal) changes make doing business more liberal and easier for foreign companies " because they will bring new job opportunities, " added Silliman Businesses set up in Kuwait free trade zone for specified operations are exempt from taxes on operations conducted in the zone, and foreign entities can own 100 percent of such businesses.
Sheikh Mishal made it very clear that Kuwait did not need cash but advanced technologies and innovation, and highlighted a new "one-stop shop" for business registration € an effort that aims to cut through tremendous bureaucratic red tape.
He said the government and parliament believed the private sector should lead the Kuwaiti economy Ambassador Silliman, in a statement during the Washington event earlier this month, called Kuwait "a very quiet economic partner" that does not make headlines, although it is the fifth largest market for the US in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, driven by enthusiastic well-educated youth and high gender equality. As the private sector grows, Kuwaitis will look at the economy differently, he said, marking a "paradigm shift" in the culture at large.
Law No. 116, explained Silliman, "will provide more opportunities for Kuwaiti companies and Kuwaitis in a broad range (of sectors): education, healthcare, infrastructure projects, and will help the Kuwaiti economy's production of oil and gas through service contracts because it will make it easier for companies with the most cutting edge technology and the greatest experience in mapping wells and increasing production from different wells to actually be present in € and do business € in Kuwait." Kuwait-US trade volume grew by 188 percent within five years (2009-14), surpassing $15 billion last year. Kuwait is the 37th major foreign investor in the US with $1.3 billion.
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