Sustaining Trade with Saudi Arabia: An Analysis of Exporting as an Alternative

Over the past decade, world trade has almost doubled from $7 trillion to more than $13 trillion, and Saudi Arabia is by far the largest trading country in the Middle Eastern region, with total trade volume in excess of $102 billion. This paper reviews the economic structure of Saudi Arabia. While Saudi Arabia has been one of the fastest growing nations in the region, it has been only since 2000 that the Kingdom has made efforts to become globally integrated. The paper discusses exports to Saudi Arabia as an appropriate entry strategy and elaborates on both challenges and opportunities for exporting companies to sustain business in this lucrative market. This paper reviews economic and market perspectives of the Saudi marketplace. It discusses important considerations for formulating guidelines for exports of goods and services to Saudi Arabia. Finally, this paper proposes a set of key strategies to enable exporting companies to enter and sustain business in Saudi Arabia.