The Economic Development of Kuwait

Abstract

Kuwait’s economic development is not a history of steadily increasing wealth and prosperity. The State’s dependence on the entrepot trade of the Gulf and eastern Arabia laid it doubly vulnerable to political and economic factors largely beyond Kuwait’s control in both maritime and territorial realms. Just as the prosperity of the merchant community and its dependents in Kuwait saw successive periods of comfort and security, and then hardship and unease, so too did the growth of the city survive periods of growth and stagnation.