The Arab - Western cultural relations - publié le 14/02/2011

Thèmes abordés

THE ARAB - WESTERN CULTURAL RELATIONS

Résumé du document

Since the transatlantic declaration in 1990, American and European enjoy a strong relationship with an active cooperation in several sectors as Justice, Energy, Environment, Science or Education. They represent the largest bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world with roughly 40% of the world trade and over 60% of the world GDP1. Opposite to them, China, a 1.3 billion people country with labor resources, more educated people launched into the international competition. Those three huge countries understood that a new market emerged: the Arab market. With 25 countries and more than 325 million people, the Arab market proposes new ways to make business. When the world economic powers confront on the Arab market, the question arises about the value added of this approach. It is easy to understand that Arab market is a strategically place to invest.
Thus, the ambition of this paper is to analyze the European / American competition with China in the Arab market.
The first part will be devoted to understand the introduction of greater competition in the Arab market with a selection of sectors: banking and telecom sectors. The second part will be focused on that how the Arab market is running? How do the Arab culture, values, policy and religion influence the trade?

Extraits

[...] However in some occasion the traditional culture and value will limit the development and cooperation. Like there is one factor restricts the trade cooperation between China and Arab that China government worries about the Islam thoughts could bring negative effective to the Islam population in the North-west of China. And whatever Arab or China considered a lot of this factor, so that the investment and trade cooperation will be influenced. In the view of China decision makers, the religion has the characteristics: Religion always links to the national problem. [...]

[...] Whereas the cultural exchange and influences on the principles of trade. Today's Arab world is a various society with different races, languages and customs; however the Islam and Arabic are the main culture phenomena. Since the different history backgrounds, there are lots of differences between Middle-east counties, as well as the difference of economic models, like Iran Islam development model, Egypt nationalism development model and so on. But there is one common model, which is emphasizing the characteristic of Islam, if without the power of Islam, it is difficult to promote and implement any economic reformations. [...]

[...] Before the crisis, Middle East was an opportunity area for the companies. Especially after the Middle East government liberalized their markets, foreign companies started and increase investments. For the crisis, the region's Central Bank forced to keep the interest rate at the lower level than inflation rate. But this crisis social and economical inequality between rich-middlelower class sector. Also Middle East cannot afford continued political decision, technologies, regional skills and human resources when there is critical situation. So the financial crisis affects the Middle East with an indirect way. [...]

[...] FIGURE1: GDP IN THE ARAB COUNTRIES Source: World Economic Outlook Update, January 2009 B. FIGURE OIL RESERVES IN 2008 Source: Proved reserves at end 2008, The LEVIN Institute, http://www.globalization101.org/index.php?file=issue&pass1=subs&id=334, Silicon Valley. Feng Maya Kizgindere Onur Meunier Nelly Tang Xian 13 nov C. FIGURE CHINA'S MAJOR OIL SUPPLIERS, JANUARY TO MAY 2009 D. FIGURE CELLULAR MOBILE SERVICES LEVEL OF COMPETITION Source: Competition trends in ICT worldwide, Caribbean Region Seminar: Issues in Telecommunication economics and financing, 10-13 September 2007, Antigua and Barbuda Regulatory & Market Environment Division, Telecommunication Development Bureau, International Telecommunication Union, PDF pages. [...]

[...] Thus, the ambition of this paper is to analyze the European / American competition with China in the Arab market. The first part will be devoted to understand the introduction of greater competition in the Arab market with a selection of sectors: banking and telecom sectors. The second part will be focused on that how the Arab market is running? How do the Arab culture, values, policy and religion influence the trade? Sources: Arab countries, Arab Countries Regional Report, Final Draft as of February United States of America, External Relations, European Commission, http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/us/index_en.htm, 11/15/09. [...]