Middle East & North Africa Economic Outlook Growth prospects for 2024 improving After a sharp slowdown this year, GDP growth across the Middle East and North Africa will improve in 2024 as OPEC+ starts to raise its output quotas and high oil prices allow the Gulf economies to... 25th September 2023 · 20 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly Egypt’s presidential election, GCC debt, Morocco-IMF Speculation is mounting that Egypt may bring forward its presidential election, which would go some way towards explaining policy paralysis around the pound. If this persists and a de facto peg is... 21st September 2023 · 6 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update Addressing key questions from our Egypt drop-in Yesterday, we hosted a Drop-in webinar taking a closer look at the state of play in Egypt and whether the country can get its IMF deal back of track. You can view on-demand here. This Update addresses... 14th September 2023 · 4 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly Egypt inflation and rates, Morocco quake, new oil f’casts The further rise in inflation in August means that the Central Bank of Egypt will probably raise interest rates again next week, but investors (and the IMF) will be paying more attention to any news... 14th September 2023 · 6 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly Saudi oil output cut, another delay to Egypt’s IMF review? Saudi Arabia announced it will roll over its additional voluntary 1mn bpd oil output cut until the end of the year, which we think will push the economy into a sharp contraction over the second half... 7th September 2023 · 9 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Rapid Response PMIs (Aug. 23) August’s batch of PMIs for the region showed that activity in non-oil private sectors in the Gulf eased, but that activity remained strong. In contrast, Egypt’s PMI remained below the 50-mark and the... 5th September 2023 · 2 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly SAMA drawdown, Saudi real estate, Egypt industry plans The drop in the Saudi central bank’s foreign assets to a 14-year low in July caused some concern this week, but we suspect this reflects funds being recycled to the Public Investment Fund rather than... 31st August 2023 · 6 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly BRICS Summit, Morocco’s policymaking Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt were among six countries to be invited to join the BRICS bloc, which could solidify the shift in their geopolitical alignment towards a China-led bloc . This could... 24th August 2023 · 6 mins read
Emerging Markets Economics Update Debt risks: Frontiers not out of the woods Market concerns about sovereign debt risks across frontier markets have eased a touch in recent months. For our part, while we think that Egypt and Nigeria should be able to avoid default, Kenya faces... 23rd August 2023 · 3 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Chart Pack Middle East and North Africa Chart Pack (Aug. 2023) Oil output cuts are driving a sharp slowdown in economic growth across the Gulf. The hit to volumes will more than offset the rebound in oil prices but, for now at least, fiscal policy is being kept... 21st August 2023 · 1 min read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly Egypt’s fiscal position, destination Dubai, Gulf inflation Egypt’s government debt-to-GDP ratio jumped to 96% in FY2022/23, one of the largest ratios in the emerging world, but there remain reasons to think that the government will be able to avoid a... 17th August 2023 · 6 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly Aramco profit slump, Egypt back on the orthodox train? The slump in the profits of Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, Aramco, in Q2 has focussed attention on the deterioration in the Kingdom’s budget position. But the authorities appear to be taking as... 10th August 2023 · 7 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Rapid Response Egypt Consumer Prices (Jul.) Egypt’s headline inflation hit a fresh record high of 36.5% y/y in July and, with a fresh devaluation of the pound on the cards in the coming months, it will remain elevated for some time. The Central... 10th August 2023 · 2 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update Central Bank of Egypt hikes, but still work to do The Central Bank of Egypt unexpectedly hiked interest rates late yesterday, by 100bp to 19.25%, but it still needs to follow through with another devaluation as well as further rate hikes in order to... 4th August 2023 · 3 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly Record SAIBOR, Egypt FX crunch, Saudi extends oil cut The Saudi Arabian interbank rate hit its highest level in over two decades and, with credit growth in the Kingdom slowing, pressure is likely to mount on the Saudi Central Bank to intervene and inject... 3rd August 2023 · 7 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Rapid Response PMIs (Jul. 23) July’s batch of PMIs for the region were a mixed bag, with the surveys from the Gulf falling back as they did in many other emerging markets but still pointing to robust non-oil activity. Elsewhere... 3rd August 2023 · 2 mins read
