 In May that year, the company opened the first Clas Ohlson branch outside Europe, a store in Dubai's Mirdif City Centre.It was, the Swedish company said, "a first step into the fast-growing Gulf Co-operation Council region".The livestock-to-sportswear Al Homaizi group had in 1987 opened a flat-pack furniture store in Kuwait with Swedish retailer IKEA, under whose name the store traded.