APICORP white paper: Economic opportunities and challenges for MENA countries under Covid-19

APICORP white paper: Economic opportunities and challenges for MENA countries under Covid-19

Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP) issued a white paper entitled 'BEYOND ENERGY: HOW MENA ECONOMIES EMERGE POST-2021' analysing the economic opportunities and challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic in the MENA region.The paper notes that the impact of the unprecedented 2020 triple crisis - health, economic and financial - across the region is multifaceted, and has widened income and productivity gaps between and within countries. At this stage, only a few countries possess the right ingredients of strong and stable governance, policy credibility and sound public finances management, to translate stimulus packages launched by governments amidst the crisis into productive debt and sustainable recovery.While countries with large financial reserves were able to inject liquidity in their economies and banking systems, with many funnelling resources towards specific industry sectors as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), countries with comparatively lesser reserves are facing exhaustion risk if other financing instruments are not found.As for the banking sector, GCC-based banks have proven to be quite resilient and well positioned to weather the downturn caused by the pandemic, thanks to a combined $2.3tn in assets at the end of 2019. Banks with the highest exposure