The FIFA World Cup: Its Impact on Business across the GCC
The FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar will be one of the biggest and most impactful sporting events ever to take place in the Middle East. It is set to put Qatar and the GCC firmly on the map, both as a region awash with luxury tourist destinations, as well as the center of the globe’s most vibrant business economies.
Qatar itself has invested substantially in the World Cup, developing and upgrading significant parts of its local infrastructure, while creating a whole new portfolio of high-quality hotel and hospitality venues and facilities. Importantly, many of the infrastructure projects are linked to the Qatar National Vision and will bring longer term benefits to Qatar as part of its economic and cultural diversification strategies.
The nation is expecting to see a significant economic boom on the back of the event. Direct revenues from the World Cup are predicted to be around $2bn, with longer-term indirect contributions to GDP estimated to be in the region of $2.5bn from 2022 to 2035.
The event will also bring short-term tourism revenues to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain. However, the real gains will result from the GCC being showcased to a global audience of billions, generating substantial interest in international investment, and opening up a wealth of new business opportunities across the entire region.
The World Cup is going to be a catalyst for both international organizations looking to expand globally, as well as for entrepreneurs and start-ups looking to establish a foothold in the GCC markets. However, there are obvious risks involved with new ventures, and a popular strategy adopted by many organizations looking to enter the region is to partner with an Employer of Record (EOR).
An EOR is a third-party organization that acts as the legal employer of a company’s workforce and takes on all the employer-related and HR management functions on their behalf. Importantly, it allows a company to hire and engage employees in a country without having to set up local entities.
An EOR partner will handle the legal, regulatory and compliance processes that your company has to navigate in order to establish its local teams and infrastructure, while mitigating or reducing many of the associated risks. EORs are also an invaluable source of local and regional information, and can act as a guide when sourcing other partners with specific knowledge and expertise.
For companies looking to explore opportunities in the GCC’s burgeoning new markets, engaging with a professional EOR partner should probably be one of their first steps.
Talk to Auxilium
If you are considering expanding your business into the GCC, or if you are looking to recruit international talent to help grow your business, then you should talk to Auxilium, one of the leading EOR and outsource staffing solutions providers in the GCC Region. We help organizations to expand and recruit staff in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman.
For more information on employer of record and outsource staffing services, please contact the Auxilium Team.
