Gulf's mid-year surpluses put allocation in question
Flushed with cash from a post-pandemic oil boom, Gulf states once again face a choice: lifting up their citizenries’ short-term contentment or fiscal restructuring and investing in long-term productive assets.
Gulf states are floating on air from the good news of 2022. Money flows upward on the back of inflated energy prices, wire-transferring wealth from inflation-hit countries to oil-exporting nations. Middle Eastern energy exporters will reap up $1.3 trillion in additional revenues over the next four years, the IMF forecasted.
Saudi Arabia is poised to become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies in 2022. Its gross domestic product increased 12.2% in the second quarter as state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco unveiled a record profit of $48.4 billion. LNG heavyweight Qatar posted a 12-fold jump in surplus for the first half. The same goes for Gulf's weakest economies: Bahrain posted a $88 million mid-year surplus, and Oman expects its first yearly surplus in a decade.
Swiss bank UBS forecast that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies will grow 3.4% in 2023. Fitch Ratings had a "negative outlook" on Saudi Arabia during the 2020 oil prices crash but moved to stable in 2021 and this year has switched to a "positive outlook" on the back of higher oil prices and progress with fiscal and economic reforms, the agency’s head of Middle East and Africa sovereign ratings, Toby Iles, told Al-Monitor.
Oman was hit by “a lot of rating downgrades” during the oil price decline but Fitch moved the outlook to stable in 2021 and upgraded the rating in August 2022, Iles added.
