IMF Survey: Mideast Outlook Varies Markedly Across Region

Countries across the Middle East and North Africa face a diverging economic outlook, with oil exporters experiencing a pickup in growth in 2011 on the back of higher oil prices and oil importers seeing a dramatic downturn as the region faces heightened regional and global uncertainty, the IMF says in its latest assessment.

The IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook for the Middle East and Central Asia, released October 26, projects growth in the Middle East and North Africa region at 3.9 percent in 2011, down from 4.4 percent in 2010.

The region’s oil-exporting countries (excluding Libya)—Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen—are forecast to expand by 4.9 percent in 2011, thanks to higher oil prices and oil production, before moderating in 2012.

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