Oil prices have dropped from $147 a barrel to between $50 and $60 over the past year, leading to a collapse of export revenues for Middle Eastern and North African oil producers.
Foreign investment, remittances, and tourism receipts will be affected throughout the region. Yet growth – although slowing – remains higher than in many regions, including Latin America and eastern Europe. This year, the oil exporters of the Middle East and North Africa will see their non-oil gross domestic product – a good measure of local economic conditions that directly affect their population – expand at more than 3.5 per cent. Real GDP in the region’s diverse group of oil-importing emerging markets and developing countries should also grow at about the same rate.
To be sure, this represents a slowdown from the near 6 per cent growth rates of recent years, but in terms of the magnitude of the slowdown, as well as the level of growth, the Middle East and North Africa is slated to be the best performing region after developing Asia this year. What explains this resilience?
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