Publication: Gulf Economic Update, Spring 2024: Unlocking Prosperity: Transforming Education for Economic Breakthrough in the GCC
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2024-06-03
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2024-06-03
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The Gulf Economic Update (GEU) is the product of the Middle East and North Africa unit in the Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment (MTI) Global Practice at the World Bank Group. It provides an update on key economic developments and policies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the past six months, places them in a longer-term and global context and assesses the implications of these developments and other changes in policy on the outlook for the GCC. Its coverage ranges from the macro-economy to financial markets to indicators of human welfare and development. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in the GCC.
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“World Bank. 2024. Gulf Economic Update, Spring 2024: Unlocking Prosperity: Transforming Education for Economic Breakthrough in the GCC. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41642 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Gulf Economic Update, Spring 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-27)The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies performed strongly in 2022. Amidst a year of economic uncertainty marked by inflation, geopolitical crises, and supply chain insecurity, the GCC region registered remarkable GDP growth of 7.3 percent in 2022. Progress made on structural reforms are bearing fruits on the economy. Despite the uptick, inflation remains relatively muted in comparison to other high-income countries. Looking ahead, the GCC region is projected to grow at a slower pace. The main contributors to this growth are private consumption, fixed investments, and government expenditures through looser fiscal policy in response to high oil revenues. However, downside risks to the outlook are numerous. Special Focus: Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) pose a major health burden to the population and governments of the GCC. NCDs are also a growing concern from an economic perspective. 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Following a year of economic distress, the GCC economies are expected to return to growth in 2021, buoyed by the global economic recovery, projected at 5.6 percent (upgraded by 1.5 percentage points from the projection in January 2021), the revival of global oil demand, expected at 96.5 billion barrels per day (from 91 billion barrels per day in 2020), and the rebound in international oil prices to an annual forecast average US$56 per barrel (now outpaced by an actual average US$61.45 in January-May 2021). The forecast is for an aggregate GCC GDP growth of 2.2 percent in 2021, roughly tracking the turnaround in high-income countries, with the outcomes ranging from 1.2 percent for the UAE to 2.4 percent for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Thereafter, economic growth in the GCC is expected to firm up to an annual average 3.3 percent for 2022-23. With rising oil prices in the first half of 2021, a potential upside scenario for the second half of the year sees improved current account balances being channeled directly to public sector savings. Because of the exposure to global oil demand and personal service industries and the continuing effects of the pandemic, downside risks to the outlook are also high. In this issue of the Gulf Economic Update, the focus is on fiscal revenues and structural reforms including strategic investments in digitalization and telecommunications. Strategic investment in advanced telecommunications technologies, including 5G, is underway in the GCC. But beyond capital spending on infrastructure, the telecommunications sector would benefit greatly from improvements in the legal, regulatory, and competition frameworks under which service providers operate.
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