Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly MENA Weekly: OPEC+ hikes, Saudi banks go abroad, Trump’s metals tariffs OPEC+ opted to stick to a faster pace of oil output increases in July, and Saudi Arabia is now pushing for the group to continue this through to Q4. While this will lift oil GDP growth, the non-oil... 5th June 2025 · 6 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update MENA PMIs: a soft year ahead for Gulf non-oil sectors May’s batch of PMIs across the Gulf point to a softer Q2 for non-oil sectors and the backdrop of lower oil prices will likely result in less fiscal support and weaker confidence that add to the... 4th June 2025 · 2 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly Israel-Iran, Egypt’s MPR, Morocco secures UAE investment Rumours that Israel could strike Iran’s nuclear facilities suggest that conflict in the region could escalate. But there are reasons to think that the fallout for the oil market, and therefore the... 22nd May 2025 · 7 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update Should we be worried about the UAE’s credit boom? Credit growth in the UAE has boomed, fuelling a sharp rise in property prices, particularly in Dubai. Prices are now at risk of a correction which, in the past, has fed into banking and debt worries... 20th May 2025 · 4 mins read
Emerging Markets Economics Update US and China try to shift the fracturing map The flurry of diplomatic activity by both the US and China this week underscores that geopolitical alliances in parts of the emerging world are fluid. We suspect that most countries in Latin America... 16th May 2025 · 5 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly MENA Weekly: Trump’s trip tips the Gulf towards the US President Trump’s visit to the Gulf has led to a raft of deals, totalling nearly $1trn, with more likely in the offing. While Saudi Arabia’s ‘security for oil’ pact that underpinned strong relations... 15th May 2025 · 8 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Chart Pack Middle East & North Africa Chart Pack (May '25) Our Middle East & North Africa Chart Pack has been updated with the latest data and our analysis of recent developments. The decision by OPEC+ to follow up May’s faster rise in oil production with a... 15th May 2025 · 1 min read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Focus Trump arrives in a much-changed Middle East Donald Trump has arrived in the Middle East and changes in the power and influence of the region’s actors mean that he will find a very different region to the one during his last visit in 2017. Iran... 13th May 2025 · 14 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly MENA Weekly: OPEC+ goes bold, Trump heads to the Gulf OPEC+’s decision to speed up the pace of oil output increases will help the Gulf members to recapture market share over the next few years, while also providing a boost to headline GDP growth... 8th May 2025 · 8 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly MENA Weekly: OPEC+, Saudi-US nuclear talks, Egypt-Qatar investment OPEC+’s new compensatory cuts appear to a sign of the larger Gulf states seeking to regain market share from the group’s overproducers. But a renewed fall in oil prices could derail these plans... 17th April 2025 · 6 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Chart Pack Middle East & North Africa Chart Pack (Apr. '25) Our Middle East & North Africa Economics Chart Pack has been updated with the latest data and our analysis of recent developments. The direct impact of Trump’s trade war on the region is likely to be... 16th April 2025 · 0 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly How might the Gulf respond to the slip in oil prices? President Trump’s tariffs and OPEC+’s surprise oil output hike has sent oil prices tumbling over the past two weeks and, despite a recovery yesterday, are now below breakeven fiscal and external... 10th April 2025 · 8 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update Oil needs to fall a long way before Gulf’s pegs are at risk Oil prices have now fallen well below the level needed to balance current accounts across much of the Gulf, which may raise concerns about the sustainability of the region’s dollar pegs. And, indeed... 9th April 2025 · 3 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update MENA PMIs: a soft end to Q1 March’s batch of PMIs across much of the Middle East and North Africa came in softer as worries about a global trade war weighed on activity. Those concerns will have only mounted in the wake of... 7th April 2025 · 3 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update Oil’s slide and what it means for the Gulf President Trump’s tariffs, retaliation by China, and OPEC+’s decision to accelerate the pace of oil output increases have caused the price of Brent crude to tumble to its lowest level in four years... 4th April 2025 · 4 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economic Outlook MENA Outlook: Oil-fuelled growth to mask non-oil slowdown GDP growth in the Middle East and North Africa will pick up over the next couple of years supported by rising oil and LNG output from the Gulf. However, lower oil prices will result in tighter fiscal... 27th March 2025 · 20 mins read