All the Arab countries in general and the Gulf countries in particular do NOT want any business done between them. It is probably much easier doing business with even Israel (no we can’t) and Bahrain than Bahrain and Saudi.
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It took 3 hours this morning to find the big boss who in turned called DHL to find out if this is true and if it was alright to use DHL’s declaration form numbers rather than the government’s! Finally, after a long struggle he gave his go ahead. It took the supervisor assigned to rubber stamp the documents more than 30 minutes just to produce the bloody rubber stamp, photocopy some papers, and fill in the spaces in that rubber stamp!
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Bottom line. If you don’t know how to be a crook and stick by the book, don’t go into business and most certainly don’t even CONSIDER doing business with your neighboring countries who claim to want integration, customs union and single currency!

such are mahmood’s experiences with the new gulf customs union. this is very much in line with the fact that third world countries are much more protectionist amongst themselves than the supposedly evil west is towards them. if they were to abolish these trade barriers, they would leapfrog 10 years of development (granted, with big turmoil, but taking a collective leap of faith, and a suffering today for a better tomorrow may not be such a bad thing)

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