Coinciding with the Middle East visit of Wu Sike, China's new special envoy to the Middle East, Zhonglun W & D has announced its plan to launch a branch office in Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia. The plan to gain a foothold in the region’s nascent legal market came just one year after the firm established its Middle East practice group in Beijing.
The new Riyadh office will be led by the director of the firm's Middle East group, Ahmad Kusayer, and initially will be staffed by local lawyers only. It will provide legal services to both Chinese clients doing business in the Middle East and clients from the Middle East investing in China.
"We find special need for our commercial connections and our market understanding in opening doors for our Chinese clients to penetrate the Middle East market efficiently without wasting much time, energy, and resources," said Ahmad Kusayer. "Development projects are among our hottest issues so far. Most of our clients are keen about the vastly growing construction market, mining market, and cement market in addition to oil and oil products, projects and purchases."
However, penetrating the Middle East market is challenging to both clients and firms. Kusayer pointed out that the key to develop a solid presence there is to have proper connections.
"Having an office in Middle East in itself is a very expensive investment that may not be feasible at this stage since there are many small Arabic countries in the Middle East each with their own legal bodies, procedures, and key figures. Knowing who to deal with and how to deal with them is key," Kusayer said.
As China is expected to be the first to recover from the effects of the global financial crisis, Zhonglun W & D sees plenty of opportunity ahead in the region for its Chinese clients.
"As the main global supplier of oil, gas, and petrochemicals, the Middle East is rich in opportunities and projects. But for a very long time, the region has been exclusively manipulated by Western Mega-companies, who tried hard to ensure that entering this market is difficult for others," said Kusayer. "Due to the ongoing political and financial hard times in the West, we feel it is a great time for our Chinese partners to establish themselves."
Significant potential exists in the Middle East that has not yet been explored by Chinese companies due to the difficulty of penetrating the market. Zhonglun W & D's Riyadh office is set to leverage its knowledge and connections to navigate its clients through different culture, legal system, politics and business practices and to ensure their continuous prosperity.
The Riyadh office will be Zhonglun W & D's second overseas office and will be the first branch office of a PRC firm in the Middle East region. The firm opened an office in London in 2006, which was also the first for a PRC firm.