ABSTRACT
The resource base of a country or region largely conditions its patterns of industry and trade. Raw materials often control the form of industrial activity, while surpluses and deficiencies dictate the commodities of trade. New commercial banks were established, national banking systems were expanded and foreign finance houses were allowed to trade, especially in the states on the Arab side of the Gulf. Commerce is lubricated by financial flows between trading partners, whilst investment capital is essential to programmes of industrial and infrastructural development. Small towns, however, play a more basic role in the internal trading patterns of Middle Eastern states. Agriculture not only produces many of the leading exports of the Middle East, but also supplies raw materials to the region's manufacturing industry. Nationalization of much private and foreign industry has been carried out in the more socialist countries, beginning with Egypt from 1956, so that the benefits would accrue to the people.
