North Africa begins to whet Gulf appetites

MARRAKECH // Gulf businesses and investors are moving rapidly into north Africa despite obstacles such as poorly maintained roads and ports, and the lack of an established middle class to drive consumption.

Many countries in North Africa, including Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, have revised economic policies and lifted trade barriers in recent years.

Those moves have made the region increasingly open to foreign investment and more attractive for foreign investors, despite the difficulties.

The Abu Dhabi-based Rotana Hotels is in talks to run three more hotels in the region after recently securing management deals in Rabat, Morocco and in Tripoli, Libya.

The expansion is part of a plan to add 70 hotels to its portfolio by 2014, Selim el Zyr, the president and chief executive, said on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum conference in Marrakech.

"North Africa has always been a very interesting destination for tourism, particularly Morocco and Tunisia," Mr el Zyr said. "Libya is more a business destination and the same for Algeria.

"Initially we started the company in the UAE and this is where we concentrated. Then we started to enlarge our circle. Now we have reached here.

"This is the last stop before we go to other areas of the world. North Africa is the largest zone, and the last zone before our step further into east Africa."

The Al-Futtaim Group, based in Dubai and one of the region's largest business conglomerates, is also planning to expand aggressively in north Africa and may spend more than US$1 billion (Dh3.67bn) on acquisitions in the coming years.

Nabil Habayeb, the chief executive of General Electric (GE) for the MENA region, said the opportunities in the area were opening up as companies and governments invested in the sectors in which GE operates, including water, power generation and aerospace.

"Morocco is a big focus for us and Tunisia and Libya continue to be, in addition to what we already have," Mr Habayeb said.

"We have a base that we are planning on growing and certainly the dynamics are in favour for a company like us to come in and bring in our solutions and our technology."