Cranes cast shadows over construction sites. Banners hanging off gleaming multi-storey blocks promise they will soon be open. Workmen put the finishing touches to the new premises of a Saudi investment company in Riyadh, while businessmen in the east talk of expansion.

All are testament to the oil-fuelled boom Saudi Arabia is enjoying, with its real gross domestic product swelling from $188.6bn in 2002 to $348.7bn last year, providing the government with a record current account surplus of $95.5bn in 2006 after the deficits of the 1990s.