Celine Salloum

The actual size of the Middle East wealth management market is not very large; however, the opportunity it provides is significant, writes Celine Salloum, Research Associate at Zawya. What began largely as an act of frustration and defiance by one man in Tunisia has unleashed decades of pent-up frustrations that have begun to reshape a key region of the world. In a region that stretches from Morocco to Kuwait and covers terrain from mountains to desert, the range of economic activity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is as varied as the geography. For the past several months, we've been bombarded with news about unrest in the MENA. The events in early 2011 that led to regime changes in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt and the ongoing challenges in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen have affected the short-term macroeconomic outlook as well as the status and speed of economic reform. The actual size of the Middle East wealth management market is not very large; however,

Investments in mutual funds in Bahrain decreased by nearly 4.75% from USD 9.17 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 to USD 8.74 million at the end of the second quarter of 2011, data compiled by Zawya Funds Monitor show. But the trend appears to be reversing. Regarded as one of the best-regulated financial centers in the Middle East, Bahrain has been a prominent financial hub for more than 40 years; however, according to the Z/Yen Group's 10 th  edition of the Global Financial Centers Index (GFCI), Bahrain fell six places to be the 55 th  most prominent financial centre in the world, after being the 49 th  in the previous edition of the index. Bahrain has worked to diversify its economy over the past decade, culminating in being named by Global Investor Magazine as the Best Financial Center in the Middle East, in November 2010. The Bahraini funds industry has USD 9 billion of assets under management, meaning plenty is on hand for wide opportunities. Despite the recent disrup