I know it has been a while since I have written here, but I have been busy at the law firm that I established last year. It has been very busy since. But, I want to share with you the positive changes happening in Kuwait in regards to SME’s (small and medium enterprises that have a capital of less then KD500,000 or less then 50 employees).
You might have seen the wonderful and colorful logo of New Kuwait or Kuwait 2035, the logo has been proudly displayed on governmental buildings, e-goverment websites and other major projects. New Kuwait is Kuwait’s National Development Plan that according to their website “sets the nation’s long-term development priorities. It is organized around five themes, or desired outcomes, and seven pillars, or areas of focus for investment and improvement.” In short they want Kuwait to be in the top 35% of the world in the Global Indicator Rankings (I know how much Mark enjoys sharing rankings!)
So what are these positive changes so far legally? They are too many to include in one post but I want to speak today about positive changes in legislations and bylaws. We have had amazing changes for SME’s and of course as a reflection of these legal changes we are seeing restaurants, speciality coffee shops, kaftan designers, apps and so on pop up at a tremendous rate, some with high success rates. Here are some of the changes I wanted to highlight:
1) Fairly New Company Law (2016) – Some important changes were made, one of them is that there is now such a thing as NPC – non-profit companies and the other being that we now have a one person company that is referred to as a sole proprietorship.
2) Kuwait Business Center – A one stop center to establish companies in Kuwait. Every time I visit the center there is new positive changes and I have had an overall great experience for my clients. Unfortunately, some of my clients found it difficult to find the location. It is located in Eshbilaa Coop which is out of the way from Kuwait city, but they have new signs up now (with encouraging words). KBC claim that the new process takes 5 days, from my experience with clients I would say that you will need to allow yourself two weeks. [kbc.gov.kw]
3) KDIPA – Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority is an authority in Kuwait that was established to encourage foreign companies to invest in Kuwait. One of the changes they brought forward was that you can now establish a company in Kuwait without a Kuwaiti partner. This isn’t available to all companies, just ones that meet KDIPA’s criteria. [kdipa.gov.kw]
4) Kuwait SME Fund – An independent public corporation that has allocated 2 billion Kuwaiti Dinars to finance SME’s in Kuwait. The fund finances up to 80 percent of capital for SME’s submitted by Kuwaiti nationals.
I hope to see reforms in other parts of Kuwait’s legal system, especially for employment laws and bylaws.
For any legal inquiries, please email me on [email protected] and my team or I will get back to you within 24 hours.
Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.
