Saudi Arabia and Kuwait launch joint business body

• Aims to promote cross-border trade
• Chambers of commerce announcement
• Trade high but investment low

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have launched their first private business body with the aim of promoting cross-border investment and increasing trade.

The chambers of commerce in the two countries, which are members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, made the joint announcement after the first meeting of the new organisation in Saudi Arabia at the weekend.

Trade between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait has remained high in recent years but investments have been relatively low.

Two-way trade stood at around $2.5 billion in the first 11 months of 2025, according to the federation of the Saudi chambers.

Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, has maintained a massive surplus in exchanges with its neighbour, with exports at around $2.1 billion during that period. Kuwait’s exports to Saudi Arabia stood at $400 million.

“The formation of the Saudi-Kuwaiti business council represents a pivotal moment in the economic relations between the two countries,” said the council’s chairman Salman Al-Aqeel, who heads the Saudi Hafar Al-Batin chamber.

“It embodies a real approach to empowering the business sectors in both countries to capitalise on promising investment opportunities and strengthen bilateral trade and investment,” Kuwaiti and Saudi media quoted him as saying.

In 2025, Saudi Arabia invited Kuwaiti companies to take advantage of incentives and high growth in its mining industry and to invest in the sector.

• Saudi Arabia and Kuwait log strong non-oil growth
• Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait non-oil sectors flourish
• Kuwait’s nine-month trade surplus dips 29%

Saudi industry and mineral resources minister Bandar Al-Khorayef told Kuwaitis at an investment forum in the capital Kuwait City that the kingdom is concentrating on the development of 12 key industries, including metals, cars and aviation as part of its Vision 2030 economic transformation scheme launched eight years ago.

Sitting atop more than 360 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait jointly operate fields in the oil-rich border neutral zone they share.

In late 2024, state companies Saudi Aramco and Kuwait Gulf Oil said they had jointly devised plans to boost crude production in two main oilfields.