Is the Gulf region now attracting inward investment — rather than just exporting capital to the rest of the world?
Yes, unambiguously. As Eyad Faraj states directly in this episode of Beyond the Deck, "the region has moved from just being a distributor of capital to also attracting it." International investors today look at the Gulf not only as a place to raise funds, but as a genuine destination — drawn by large-scale infrastructure projects, GDP growth well above global averages, a growing population with strong spending capacity, and dollar-pegged economies that eliminate currency risk entirely.
For decades, the default dynamic was one-directional: global fund managers would fly into the Gulf to raise capital, not to deploy it. That dynamic has structurally reversed. The inclusion of Gulf markets in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index has been a defining catalyst — it transforms the region from an optional allocation into a mandatory one for every global emerging market fund. Sovereign vehicles such as the PIF (Public Investment Fund) in Saudi Arabia, Mubadala in Abu Dhabi, and the QIA in Qatar spent the first eight to ten years of the transformation era investing domestically to build economic foundations and proof of concept. That groundwork is now attracting the foreign capital that follows it.
The scale of what is being built in the region further reinforces this shift. As Faraj puts it, the projects being undertaken in the Gulf are "once in a lifetime" — transformational in scope, backed by sovereign balance sheets, and operating at a speed that most mature markets cannot replicate. For international investors seeking both growth and stability, that combination is increasingly difficult to ignore. You can hear the full conversation on Listenly's Beyond the Deck page.
"This is a private business where CEOs never had to answer to anybody but himself and his family members who sit on the board. And all of a sudden, you have an international investor who says, I love what you've done with the business, but these are my ideas."
— Eyad Faraj, Partner, Roland Berger · Beyond the DeckAbout Eyad Faraj
Eyad Faraj is a partner at Roland Berger, embedded in its transaction and investor services practice and based in Bahrain — positioning him at the geographic heart of the GCC's financial ecosystem. He operates across the full Gulf Cooperation Council, advising on the capital and investment questions that sit at the intersection of strategy and dealmaking.
What sets Faraj apart is the breadth of vantage points from which he has observed Gulf investment dynamics. His career spans capital markets, investment banking, and strategy consulting — meaning he has been on both sides of the table: structuring transactions, reading markets, and now advising organisations on where and how capital should flow. He is originally from Bahrain and has worked both inside and outside the region, giving him a dual perspective that few practitioners in the Gulf can claim.
This combination of local embeddedness and international exposure makes Faraj a credible and authoritative voice on precisely the question this fiche addresses: whether the Gulf has genuinely crossed the threshold from capital exporter to capital destination. His answer, grounded in years of direct observation, is an unambiguous yes.
See also
Value creation in the Gulf encompasses portfolio optimization — deciding where assets should sit and whether they can be warehoused under a single vehicle — as well as operational improvements and strategic repositioning to meet the expectations of international investors entering the region.
Historically, Gulf capital was deployed by the public sector into hydrocarbon-based infrastructure, and cross-border investments outside the respective countries were the primary vehicle for wealth distribution. Over the last decade, the focus has shifted decisively toward domestic economic diversification, with non-oil GDP becoming the key benchmark for measuring progress.