ABSTRACT
Foreign trade has been a traditional activity in Kuwait. Foreign trade accounts for over 90 percent of the country's economic activity; over 33 percent of those employed in Kuwait's private sector are in wholesale and retail trading enterprises. Kuwait enjoys a surplus in the balance of trade with other Arab countries. A growing concern about the value of trade with Kuwait is bred out of two important causes. First, the rising dependence of developed economies on crude oil imports has forced policymakers to take a long, hard look at ways to balance the growing cost of fuel imports from Middle Eastern nations. Second, economic plans in Kuwait and the Middle East provide a potential market outlet for expensive technological and capital equipment that has involved high development costs and for which the demand has fallen off in many other markets because of the recession and slower national growth rates, especially in industrialized countries.
