As per the World Bank, oil exporters in the Middle East and North Africa area are continuing to make deliberate attempts to diversify and have a longer-term vision of how to manage headwinds and guide their economy through booms and busts.
“For GCC countries – their long-term view, and you can see that reflected in their visions in different degrees [as well as] in their current policies – is one of diversification,” World Bank chief economist Roberta Gatti added.
“They are definitely doing a very purposeful progress towards diversification.”
Gulf states, which are home to about a third of the world’s proven oil reserves, are at varying stages in terms of their diversification journeys. Countries such as the UAE have made strides, as they started the diversification process earlier, as per thenationalnews.
“Some of these diversifications are also being triggered by the estimates of where they stand vis-a-vis how much oil reserves they have,” Ms Gatti said.
The GCC, a six-member economic bloc that includes Opec's top oil producer Saudi Arabia and the Arab world's second-largest economy, the UAE, is diversifying its economies in order to reduce its reliance on hydrocarbon income to drive its economies. Gulf states are radically reforming their economies as part of their separate longer-term transformation vision programs, which aim to develop non-oil economic sectors, expand the industrial base, open up various sectors for investment, and implement social reforms such as increasing women's labor-force participation.