It really is a small world. Just how small was brought home to me last month on an Invest Northern Ireland mission to Saudi Arabia.

Sitting across the table from me in Jeddah, Saudi’s main port, and keen to do business with Northern Ireland was Shazad Khan, an engineering graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast, who is a top procurement executive of the $5bn Bin Laden Group, one of the world’s biggest construction groups.

He brought with him an eight-strong buying team to meet the 14 Northern Ireland companies on the mission.

His enthusiasm for Northern Ireland rubbed off on his colleagues.

Impressed by the professionalism of our companies, the Saudis freely provided a wealth of information and advice, starting a process that should lead to worthwhile business.

Mission members are already quoting on drawings provided by the Saudis and we expect a Bin Laden team to visit Belfast in early 2009.

Our companies will all need to follow up the leads and the requests for quotes as quickly as possible. Return visits to Saudi to cultivate leads will also be required.

Sometimes our companies let themselves down by not responding fast enough and leave potential customers with the impression that they’re not really hungry for their business.

Saudi businessmen demand that potential suppliers show a wholehearted commitment.

While in Jeddah, we were able to see plans for a £500m investment to upgrade the city centre, a project that includes huge spending on infrastructure

Now Saudi Arabia isn’t the easiest place in which to do business. Saudi businessmen drive a hard bargain and business etiquette is different. I’ve been doing business there for over 30 years and know what they expect. I’ve grown to enjoy doing business there and have made some very good friends. Saudi people are generally friendly and hospitable.

What I found particularly interesting in the Bin Laden meetings was the willingness they showed about forming partnerships with Northern Ireland companies, especially in construction, that would lead to joint bids for some of the huge contracts increasingly becoming available across the kingdom.

The meetings helped to flesh out the opportunities there. Thanks to the soaring oil prices, Saudi Arabia has amassed a huge financial surplus in excess of £150bn and is projecting GDP growth of around 6%.

Indeed, the oil producing countries, of which Saudi Arabia is the biggest, have generated more than £662bn to spend from higher oil prices.

Saudi authorities are also under growing pressure to use the funds quickly for investment on motorways and the long planned economic cities. Indeed, construction projects either under way or planned are worth around £200bn.

Of course Saudi Arabia has been adversely affected by the financial crisis and economic growth is expected to slow, but it will still have a massive reserve of petrodollars to spend and this presents a massive opportunity to our companies prepared to invest the time and other resources to win business there.

And I know that we have many excellent companies across a range of sectors with the potential to succeed in Saudi Arabia.

Current conditions in markets closer to home, which are likely to continue to contract in the short-term, should be seen by companies as an opportunity to focus on nations like Saudi Arabia that are still growing and have money to spend.

Furthermore, research shows that companies that have diversified their markets are best placed to ride out and even expand during downturns.

Exporters are more competitive and productive, and achieve better performance in terms of total turnover and profitability from a higher return on assets.

Exports, therefore, tend to have a very positive impact on the bottom-line of companies.

I know many smaller companies find it hard to look beyond current difficulties and to invest in new markets in a period of uncertainty.

But it is a small world and there’s plenty of help available from organisations like Invest NI in areas such as expert mentoring to enable ambitious companies to reach out and seize the opportunities that really do exist in markets that are still expanding.

Bill McGinnis is chairman of the Northern Ireland Exporters Association