TAG: The Middle East
For many years those of us who study the countries that form the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain – have grown accustomed to using and hearing one term more than any other: diversification. But what has also been just as common has been the frustration at the pace of the process.
On Tuesday's (28/03/17) newspaper review with BBC World News, OBG Editor-in-Chief Oliver Cornock discussed Brexit as Prime Minister May prepares to trigger Article 50 on Wednesday, 29th March 2017. The review also discussed the new tax regime in Saudi Arabia aimed at boosting the value of Saudi Aramco prior to the IPO in 2018, and the Trump administration’s shifting policy toward intervention in the Yemen war
Whilst many economies in the region have seen significant volatility, with major spikes in GDP growth or inflation over the last 10 years, Oman has built a well-deserved reputation for more modest cycles. Broadly, this has stood the Sultanate in good stead: the peaks might not have been as high as some of its neighbours,
but neither have been the lows. It is against this undeniably strained backdrop that Oman’s business leaders are looking for growth, and are, in fact, quite confident about prospects for it over the next 12 months.