Given that Middle Eastern capital markets are among the last to open up to international finance, it's unsurprising that analysts' research bulletins on the region often conjure up images of inertia. Consider the headings given to two reports published last year. Robert Fleming entitled a study on Egypt "The Sleeping Beauty". ING Barings chose "The Sleeping Giant" as the title for the section on Saudi Arabia in its Arab Stock Markets Review.
The authorities in Cairo could justifiably take offence. Egypt is wide awake when it comes to opening capital markets, privatizing with gusto and providing international investors with a steady stream of GDRs. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, is still snoozing. Although it has stepped up its encouragement of foreign direct investment, non-GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) nationals are still excluded from its stock exchange, the region's biggest.
Saudi Arabia might argue that its economy does not need the drastic repairs...
