The Middle East Economy

The economic narrative of Dubai has shifted in recent years, from passage through its first financial crisis as a major player in the global economy to a more forward-looking version of itself.

With crude oil prices low and seen as unlikely to return to levels above $100 in the next few years, the matter of taxes has been pushed to the forefront of debate in Dubai. The establishment of some form of general taxation has been one of the longest-running political issues in the emirate, the UAE and the wider region. With public revenues...

Level 112 of the Burj Khalifa offered a birds-eye view of Dubai to participants at the Dubai Plan 2021 Creative Labs event in March 2016. The symposium was a follow-up on the original cycle held in 2014, which formulated an ambitious strategy by which the emirate intends to build on the foundations it has already established. The 2016...

Since Saudi Arabia began reducing its domestic wheat production in 2008, the issue of food security has been high on the agenda for governments in the GCC region. The kingdom, which was once self-sufficient in the grain and even exported to the wider region, recognised a fact that is true across the whole of the Arabian Peninsula: it is...

With low oil prices continuing to take their toll on the Kuwaiti economy, the government is hoping investment in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector begins to pay dividends. Indeed, there is significant room for growth in Kuwait’s SME sector: it contributes just 3% to GDP, compared to an average of 50% in high-income economies,...

In a region that produces 20% of the world’s crude, the decline of oil prices was bound to have an impact. For the six member states of the GCC, hydrocarbons are the basis for their economies, a major export earner, and the main source of government funds. The drop in global oil prices that began in mid-2014 has therefore squeezed state...