The Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund, Jihad Azour, expected that the reserves of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries would rise between 300 and 350 billion dollars during the next three years.
Azour explained that "the Gulf Cooperation Council countries will benefit from the significant rise in oil prices, as crude prices have increased by about 60 percent since the beginning of the year, as global demand recovers from the Coronavirus pandemic."
The World Bank expects the economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to grow at a total rate of 2.2 percent this year after a contraction of 4.8 percent last year.
According to the bank, in light of recent progress in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines globally, and the global recovery of production and trade, the prospects for economic recovery are stronger now than at the end of last year. Noting that it is still important for the GCC countries to work on diversifying their economies, as oil revenues represent more than 70 percent of total government revenues in most of the GCC countries.
Source (The New Arab Newspaper, Edited)
