Good to be American
Written by Roman on December 19, 2007 – 10:32 am
Or European, preferably British. Historically, it happened that territory of the modern United Arab Emirates was under British protectorate until 1968. Later, after UAE creation in 1971, UK still played very important role helping UAE to establish oil production, police force and so on.
US played similarly important role in Saudi Arabia. One of the largest results of this cooperation is Saudi Aramco company, which is acronym for Arabian American Oil Company.
Services and products from US and Europe are very well appreciated in UAE and Saudi Arabia. As my partner said once, “We, Arabs, do not trust east other.” Although he didn’t mean literally that nobody trusts each other in Arab world, his sentence is very important to understand that having American and European company will help you to run your business because you would gain more trust from your customers just because of your company origin. For some reasons, people in this part of the world tend to think that services and products come from US or EU are of better quality and you most likely get what you’re asking for.
Couple months ago our development partner from Egypt started sales in Saudi Arabia and we introduced them to our agent there. The agent rejected the offer simply based on the fact that this company was Egyptian and much more efforts would be needed to sell their products. At the same time the agent said that if the same products were distributed on behalf of US or European company, they would start distribution.
It’s clear that company origin will not help you to run your business if you don’t do anything else, but it will surely help you opening some doors easier.
Having non-US or Non-EU company doesn’t mean you cannot get customers – you can find a lot of companies in UAE from India, China, Russia, or other counties. It only means that you might spend more efforts to establish your sales. And finally, your product and its quality will talk, not where your company is from.
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