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While Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have made great strides in establishing an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, most are still below the trend line of ICT development, as captured by the ICT Development Index, given their per capita gross national income.

• Inadequate skills, among other factors, are lowering their composite development rankings.
• Business regulations limiting the share of foreign ownership in GCC countries have lessened the pace and degree of telecommunication market liberalization.
• Some GCC countries lack extensive, reliable fixed networks to cover the majority of the country.
• There is investment bias toward the energy and real estate sectors.

Progress in education has not kept pace with improvements to ICT infrastructure in the GCC countries.

• Nationals in most of the GCC have guarantees of public employment, leaving a large part of the private-sector work, including in technical fields, to expatriates.
• There are low levels of digital literacy among the native population.