GCC Stars Shine in Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007

Amongst the competitive nations of the world, as ranked by World Economic Forum, the Arab nations demonstrated their impressive financial strength and future potential once again, with four nations appearing on the world renowned report’s top 50 listing:

• United Arab Emirates - 32nd
• Qatar - 38th
• Kuwait - 44th
• Bahrain - 49th

An extract from the prefaced(by Professor Schwab) shows the underlining thoughts of the report:

It is against a backdrop of burgeoning global imbalances, the collapse of the Doha round of trade negotiations and the revival of protectionist tendencies which are combining to create an atmosphere that highlights the precariousness of global economic growth prospects, that the World Economic Forum is bringing the latest edition of The Global Competitiveness Report. With the growing complexity of the global economy, the Report is a contribution to enhancing our understanding of the key factors which determine economic growth, and explain why some countries are much more successful than others in raising income levels and opportunities for their respective populations. By providing detailed assessments of the economic conditions of nations worldwide, the Report offers policymakers and business leaders an important tool in the formulation of improved economic policies and institutional reforms.

A noteworthy analysis from the report read " Within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the Gulf States continue to perform quite well in the overall GCI rankings. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranked 32nd while Qatar moved up eight places to rank 38th. Terms-of-trade gains linked to oil prices have boosted growth rates and reinforced already high levels of confidence in the business community, resulting from ongoing institutional modernization and improvements in macroeconomic management. However, in many of the resource-rich countries, the availability of public finance appears – at least for now – not to have translated into improvements in human capital, which would play an important role in helping these economies that are highly dependent on oil and vulnerable to external shocks to diversify their economic base."

Thus although there is improvement in the region but still the link between rapid growth and sustainability seems to be missing.