World Bank upbeat on GCC; warns of uneven Mena growth

World Bank upbeat on GCC; warns of uneven Mena growth

Buoyed by oil prices and helped by a vaccination rate much higher than the rest of Mena, the GCC is expected to notch up 5.9 per cent growth this year even as the risk of Covid-19 variants also looms

GDP per capita, a measure of people’s living standards, is expected to rise 4.5 per cent in the GCC this year and is not seen surpassing pre-pandemic levels until 2023, the World Bank said. — AFP file photo

Published: Thu 14 Apr 2022, 6:26 PM

High-income oil exporters in the six-nation GCC will benefit the most from surging oil prices wrought by the Ukrainian war, the World Bank said on Thursday as it warned of “uneven and insufficient” economic growth for the whole of Middle East and North Africa in 2022.

Buoyed by oil prices and helped by a vaccination rate much higher than the rest of Mena, the GCC is expected to notch up 5.9 per cent growth this year even as the risk of Covid-19 variants also looms. The GCC’s GDP is estimated to have risen three per cent in 2021 after contracting five per cent in 2020.

GDP per capita, a measure of people’s living standards, is expected to rise 4.5 per cent