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How much does this matter for modern business? From the late 19th century onwards Middle Eastern politicians borrowed Western institutions in order to boost economic growth. In the 1920s Ataturk introduced a thoroughly secular legal system in Turkey. Today the Islamic world boasts muscular companies and hectic stockmarkets (the market capitalisation of the region’s three biggest countries, Turkey, Egypt and Iran, doubled between 2003 and 2008). Dubai is laying out a red carpet for the world’s companies. Turkey is growing much faster than Greece.
Yet the “long divergence” continues to shape the region’s business climate. Most obviously, the Middle East has a lot of catching up to do. Income per head is still only 28% of the European and American average. More than half the region’s firms say limited access to electricity, telecoms and transport is a problem for business. The figure in Europe is less than a quarter.
There are more subtle echoes. Business across the region remains intertwined with the state while the wider commercial society is weak. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor suggests that rates of entrepreneurship are particularly low in the Middle East and north Africa. Transparency International’s corruption-perceptions index suggests that corruption is rife: in 2010, on a scale from one (the worst) to ten, Western Europe’s five most populous countries received an average score of 6.5, whereas the three most populous countries in the Middle East averaged 3.2 (Turkey scored 4.4, Egypt 3.1 and Iran 2.2).

A. 어휘
thoroughly 철저하게. secular 세속적인, 비종교적인.
legal system 법제도. muscular 근육의, 强健(강건)한.
hectic 열광적인, 소모열의. divergence 불일치, 分岐(분기), 일탈, 차이.
catching up to do 따라잡기 위해 해야 할 것.
subtle 微妙(미묘)한. echo 反響(반향). intertwine 서로 얽히다.
Entrepreneurship 기업가정신. Transparency 투명성.
corruption-perceptions index 腐敗感知指數(부패감지지수).
rife 왕성한, 유행하는. scale 척도.