DOHA: The major trends that we will be see in the Middle East from investment perspective is the focus on the domestic and regional market, a senior executive said here yesterday.
Stephen Anderson, Partner-Financial Services Advisory, Middle East, PriceWater House Coopers, Qatar, said traditionally the huge wealth from the GCC were being invested overseas but that the focus now was more on intra-GCC investments with one big driver being the consolidation of the financial services sector.
"In most GCC countries we are starting to see a trend of consolidation within the banking communities. There are huge numbers of big pan-GCC players and we will see trend for more pan-GCC banking institutions," he said.
Anderson was one the panelists at a session on investment outlook of global and regional markets at the 3rd Qatar Economic Forum which concluded here yesterday.
The panel discussions focused on trends and expectations in the global markets in the coming phase as well as expected trends in the regional financial markets.
As for the key areas for investment in the region, Anderson said they centre on strategic investments, including renewable such as solar energy which is likely to attract big investments.
Food and agriculture is a very big trend with countries of the region looking for food security which in the medium term provides a big investment opportunity. Besides, another trend that is emerging is the financial services consolidation with banks expanding more internationally.
There is also big investment appetite on the infrastructure sector and healthcare, particularly in Qatar. Another big trend that will be seen is people waking up a little more to opportunities within Iran and Iraq.
Another panelist at the session, George Shehadeh, CEO of Amwal pointed out that in view of the recent rally that has been seen on the market, there is a real risk that people will get carried away by the positive signals that have been coming out.
"For sure we are seeing very positive signals, but I don't thing these should be confused with the total recovery. There are still many challenges ahead of us predominantly in the global markets, Western markets, the US. We cannot ignore it because the last nine months have shown us that we are not immune from problems that happen outside," Shehadeh said.
"So it is important to keep that in mind and not to underestimate how much cash was sitting on the sidelines for the last few months and has been desperate to get back into the market. We may sometime underestimate how easy is to forget recent lessons."
By Nasser Al Harthy
© The Peninsula 2009
