With oil prices rising towards $150/barrel, and cities such as Dubai in the middle-east erecting new and fancier buildings, resorts, airports, seaports as well as establishing a software development hub - it stands to reason that there must be investment opportunities for the average investor in the Middle East, or West Asia as others refer to this region. Political uncertainties in Iraq notwithstanding, countries such as UAE and Qatar have had long periods of stability and prosperity, not to speak of Kuwait and Turkey.

Inspite of the long period of growth in these middle-eastern countries, investment opportunities in individual companies however is very limited, since most of them need to enter with a joint agreement with a local firm, and do not have a free hand in developing their interests. While oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell have long had interests in this region, they do not run the show the way did at one time. Oil companies moreover trade on a variety of factors and cannot be seen as a pure middle-east play.

A second route that investors have taken is through direct ownership of property in middle-east. This works for those investors who have an understanding of the local rules and market, but is a difficult route for most other investors.

A third route is to invest in bonds issued by governments in the middle-east, and you can find bond funds such as GBO emerging country debt (GMCDX), which invest in a variety of emerging country debt instruments to even out the risk.

If you wish to purchase equities, the best route may be through specific mutual funds focused on these nations and two of those are the Emirates Equity Fund and the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (launched in September 2000). There is a UAE Trading Fund as well, launched in 2004 that seeks to capture trading opportunity in equities.

Unfortunately, far too many of the equities are thinly traded, and the retail investor may be better off staying with the long term return philosophy of the other funds. Overall, be very wary of fees and other regulations around redemption of funds. UAE and the rest of middle-east will catch up with what is happening in rest of Asia Pacific in terms of open markets and variety of investing vehicles to choose from, but currently, the pickings are slim inspite of the overall economic prosperity of the region.