The Middle East

Global trade faces protectionist headwinds that are dampening the outlook for growth in the coming years. According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), trade volumes grew by 3% in 2018 and are expected to decline slightly to 2.6% in 2019 before rebounding to 3% in 2020. This may be the first time since the 2007-08 global financial crisis...

In the three decades before the 2007-08 global financial crisis, the world’s financial networks became increasingly interconnected. Financial system regulatory convergence and the growing penetration of World Trade Organisation rules, as well as the creation of currency unions such as the euro, resulted in a surge in cross-border capital flows...

As the world’s nations and businesses become increasingly interconnected, so too does the flow of global migration. In 2018, according to the OECD’s “International Migration Outlook 2019”, around 129m people lived in an OECD country that they were not born in, and more than 5.3m foreign-born persons were permanently settled in OECD countries....

Dubai has made headway despite some challenging economic conditions over recent years. Although political tensions in the region, the 2007-08 global financial crisis and the decline in oil prices from late 2014 have put downwards pressure on the emirate’s economic expansion, a range of new policies and the stimulus of Expo 2020 have eased this...