The Regus Business Tracker asked 15,000 business leaders around the world "When do you expect economic recovery and growth to be advancing strongly and reliably in your country?"
The report found that most Gulf-based business leaders expect a robust local economic recovery to begin in the first half of 2010, with 78 percent of respondents predicting local economic growth within a year.
Globally, however, economic growth is not expected until 2011, with a smaller average figure of 70 percent of global respondents expect to see steady economic growth in the coming year
Furthermore, many Gulf countries have already experienced a rise in revenues. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the survey found that 61 percent of businesses already experienced a rise in revenues over the past year. This compares with a 42 percent global average.
"The experience of growth is overall still positive around the globe, with Saudi Arabia shaking off the effects of the downturn with particular rapidity," Regus CEO Mark Dixon said in a statement.
"It does not surprise me at all" Ahmed Egal, CEO of Saudi software firm AOST Inc., told The Media Line. "Saudi Arabia has been quite insulated from the global economic crisis."
"Already three years ago the Saudi government set up a vary ambitious spending program in response to the crisis, and moved forward many projects scheduled for 2013-2014 to 2010," Egal said, referring to industrial cities, oil and gas installations and petrochemical plants. "Many companies have benefited from this, and the Saudi economy has grown."
The rosy Saudi economic outlook was also mirrored in Qatar, where the survey found 89 percent of respondents expected to see rising revenues in the coming year, and 56 percent to have also experienced a rise in revenues over the past year.
"Qatar was relative unaffected by the global economic crises and this might affect the outlook of the business community," Ganesh Seshan, professor of Economics at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar told The Media Line. "They managed to weather the crisis, and now that the world is recovering, things look even more positive."
The Saudi and Qatari economies have much in common, with extensive reserves of oil in Saudi and natural gas in Qatar. While both countries have been pushing for a diversification of their economies away from a dependence on natural resources, they have not advanced to a degree that would allow their economies to suffer any extensive damage from the global economic downturn, such as was the case in Dubai.
"In recent years Qatar has been relatively better off than the other Gulf countries and other countries in the world," Seshan said. "The construction did slow down but not to the extent that it did in Dubai."
Seshan warned that Gulf countries may not have learned much from the global downturn.
"You have a range of government but also private sector projects that are active in keeping the economy going," he added. "But hopefully they will be more careful."
