Wiki / Middle Eastern and African coatings market in to grow

According to IRL’ fourth edition of its report "A Profile of the Middle Eastern and African Paint Industries”, Saudi Arabia and Qatar offer significant growth opportunities.

The Middle Eastern paint market has been estimated at more than 1.8 million tonnes in 2011, and is dominated by the huge Saudi paint and coatings market and the smaller Emirati and Qatari markets. As well as being the leaders in size, these countries also offer significant growth opportunities, in particular Qatar, according to IRL’ fourth edition of its report "A Profile of the Middle Eastern and African Paint Industries”. 

Many Middle Eastern markets are showing positive economic growth rates despite the turmoil in many of global economies (not least in the Eurozone), and have demonstrated their ability to recover relatively quickly from the economic crisis of 2008-09. The African paint market is estimated at just above 1 million tonnes in 2011 based on the countries researched for this report. In the African region, paint market growth is expected to be at around 4 % per annum in the medium term, which seems to reflect many of the GDP growth rates found across the region, despite large inequalities between countries and sometimes within the same country. 

In Africa there is good growth mainly in the north of the continent. Many paint companies have recently targeted Egypt for investment and with good reason.  Egypt has enjoyed a really strong economic growth (up to 10 % in recent years) and has become an increasingly important supply base for coatings, in particular to Libya. Despite recent political and social unrest, Egyptian GDP is expected to grow by around 3.5 % in 2012.