Doing business in Islamic countries: an overview

Abstract

The access of Western companies -in particular the Spanish ones- to countries and markets where strong presence of Islam religion is consistent and significant. The relevance of this business target and model is growing, due to the combination of several factors: the relative higher growth of this religion and the prevalence of the religious practices in the economies and cultures, the more accelerated (on average) economic development despite the specific crisis and oil price turmoil, the international expansion of partnerships and foreign investments that many of these countries are addressing, the consolidation of a synergic “Islamic economy and business practice” usually restrained and limited to similar Islamic countries but nowadays more tolerant to non-Islamic ones, and the progressing opening of these countries and economies to global rules of commerce, intellectual property, business ownership and international operations. There is kind of a global consensus on the positive forecast of these trends, that will make the key direction of development of most of these countries in the next years.