Research & Commentary Results

The future of economic growth in the GCC is looking better than some analysts expected in the depths of the downturn in 2020. What may be different in this recovery compared to previous economic crises in the Gulf is a more limited fiscal policy space, and more variance among GCC countries in their ability to rebound with smart stimulus. As the global economic recovery now strengthens oil demand, taking advantage of this interim period of the global energy transition will mean accelerating government spending in areas where it can make a long-term impact on productivity growth and increased labor force participation among citizens in the private sector, especially women. Some governments will be able to accelerate productivity, including using highly skilled foreign labor and favorable long-term residency regimes, and others will be simply treading water to satisfy immediate demands of their populations.

There is a new and little noticed geostrategic alliance on the rise. India, Israel, and the UAE have had surface-level, transactional relations for a long time. However, last year’s normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states — chief among them, the UAE — along with Turkey’s bid to return as the leader of a Muslim order and the growing distance between the UAE and Pakistan have created an unlikely and unprecedented “Indo-Abrahamic“ transregional order. This emerging multilateral pact may fill the gap the United States is leaving in the Middle East and has the potential to transform the region’s geopolitics and geoeconomics.

Masameer County, the Netflix animated television series taking Saudi Arabia by storm, reveals how the country’s creative class, over the last two decades, has posed awareness-raising questions while reevaluating the assumptions and terms used to discuss contentious social issues. This is not the Saudi Arabia of clerics, oil, and the royal family, but the one experienced by everyday people.

While Western banks saw their valuations drop substantially during the first 18 months of the COVID pandemic — and have yet to recover — the declines among Saudi banks have been smaller and their valuations are now closer to, if not above, their pre-pandemic levels. Identifying the drivers of this seemingly contradictory trend helps us better understand the shifts within the Saudi banking sector and the growing impacts of policies related to Vision 2030, the country’s long-term economic development and diversification program.

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said arrived in Neom, Saudi Arabia, on July 11, 2021, in his first foreign trip since becoming the sultan of Oman on Jan. 11, 2020. At the start of his two-day visit to the kingdom he was met by King Salman and accompanied by a high-level Omani delegation. A slew of new agreements were signed across commerce, culture, and transport.

In the past few months, several articles have been written on the significant rise in the Saudi female labor force participation rate (LFPR) from 17.7% in Q2, 2016 to 33.2% in Q4, 2020. Interestingly, this increase in female LFPR was not coupled with a rise in unemployment, which often occurs when workforce participation rises for a particular group. In fact, the unemployment rate among female nationals declined to its lowest level in four years, at 24.4% in Q4, 2020. However, it still remains over twice as high as that for male nationals. Another positive labor market indicator, albeit one receiving little attention from analysts, is the significant change in the employment rate among Saudi women. In other words, Saudi women not only increased their share in the workforce, but were also able to gain jobs once they entered the labor force.

On July 1, 2021, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, accompanied by Mohamed Alabbar, an entrepreneur and the chairman of UAE real estate firm Eagle Hills, attended a ceremony in Belgrade. It commemoratedthe final work on a tower within Waterfront Belgrade, a major real estate project funded by the UAE. The ceremony was an illustration of the growing ties between Serbia and the UAE, which over the past nine years has become Belgrade’s primary partner in the Arab world. The UAE has also emerged as a source of cash and an instrument of domestic political promotion for the Serbian leadership.

Oil and gas have long dominated trade and investment flows between Singapore and the Gulf. In the wake of two new projects — one in Singapore and the other in the United Arab Emirates — unveiled last month, this article considers whether Singapore and the Gulf are on the cusp of a new level and type of economic relations.

Some international concern has been voiced about the future prospects of the Abraham Accords under Israel’s new government. This stems from the perception that the normalization agreements Israel signed in 2020 with the UAE and Bahrain were the personal achievements of two former leaders — Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu — and would not have happened without them. The question thus arises of whether the agreements can survive their departure from power. Not only will the Abraham Accords survive, they will now be able to flourish and reach new heights. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s statement that his first visit abroad will be to the UAE is a good indicator. 

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

Blessed with milder temperatures than its Gulf neighbors as well as abundant rain and snow fall, Iran is one of the last countries in the region to introduce a seawater transfer plan to fight unprecedented levels of drought. The plan, once fully implemented, could help build water corridors linking the shores of Iran’s southern Gulf to those of its northern Caspian Sea. Named the Hope Transfer Line, the plan promises prosperity for farmers and industrialists, and potable water for communities in some 10,000 villages and urban areas located in so-called Red Zones, a category that applies to regions coping with severe water scarcity. 

The recent push by a number of Arab states to normalize relations with the Assad regime is based on the false premise that the war is over and it is necessary to restore ties to lobby Damascus to change its relationship with Iran. Other regional dynamics are also a factor: The UAE, for example, sees it as a necessary balance against what it perceives as adversarial actions by Turkey with the Syrian jihadist group HTS in Idlib. Yet these rationales for rehabilitating the Assad regime are completely fallacious. The downsides and policy consequences will not only affect Arab states, but will also harm American interests, making it difficult for the U.S. to fully pivot to address the rising threat from China.

The recent round of fighting between Israel and Hamas, and especially the events that preceded it in Jerusalem, were the first significant test of the Arab-Israeli normalization agreements signed in 2020. Saved by Hamas’ intervention, the four normalizing Arab governments were nevertheless forced to address the consequences of their agreement in the face of popular discontent with the situation at home as well as criticism from other Arab and Muslim states over their relative silence. How they respond to the evolving Israeli-Palestinian tension going forward will be critical not only in regard to their own relations with Israel but also in terms of the future path of Arab-Israeli normalization.

The synergies between the Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean theaters have grown substantially in recent years. Speaking at a meeting in Paphos, Cyprus in mid-April 2021 with his counterparts from Greece and Israel, as well as the former minister of state for foreign affairs of the UAE (now an advisor to the UAE president), the Cypriot foreign minister noted, “The evolving web of regional cooperation is creating a new narrative.” A week later, the UAE and Israeli fighter jets flew together publicly — for the first time — in an international aerial exercise hosted by Greece. How can we explain the signs of growing cooperation between these actors that seemingly operate in close but not completely overlapping arenas?