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revising down its forecast of 2.2-percent growth from just three months ago, due to expected lower Saudi oil production as the Kingdom has pledged to overcomply with the OPEC+ oil production cuts.
Vast wealth and the promise of dramatic change make for cautious optimism concerning Saudi Arabia, the chief executive…
2232 Views | the publication reaches you by | Saudi Arabia TodayIn its January update of the World Economic Outlook (WEO) from October, the IMF cut on Monday its economic growth projections for the global economy and that in the Middle East and Central Asia region.
In the October forecasts, the IMF had expected Saudi Arabia’s real GDP growth to pick up to 2.2 percent in 2020, after sluggish 0.2 percent growth in 2019. Back then, the IMF said that Saudi Arabia would need oil prices at US$86.50 in 2019 and US$83.60 in 2020 in order to balance its budget.
“The downgrade for 2020 mostly reflects a downward revision to Saudi Arabia’s projection on expected weaker oil output growth following the OPEC+ decision in December to extend supply cuts,” the IMF said today.
At the OPEC+ meeting in December, OPEC and its partners decided to deepen the current cuts by 500,000 bpd in the first quarter of 2020, when demand is expected at its weakest for 2020. This brings total production reductions at 1.7 million bpd—that is if rogue members fall in line with their quotas.
Considering the pledge from OPEC’s largest producer and de facto leader Saudi Arabia that it would continue to significantly overcomply with its share of the cuts, the total OPEC+ cuts could be as high as 2.1 million bpd, OPEC said.
Signs of tentative stabilization of global economic growth have started to emerge, but risks continue to be skewed to the downside, although not as adverse as in October, the IMF said in its January update and warned about disruptions to global oil supply.
“Rising geopolitical tensions, notably between the United States and Iran, could disrupt global oil supply, hurt sentiment, and weaken already tentative business investment,” the IMF said.
150 take part through Watani Al Emarat via the ‘Your City Needs You’ initiative Over 150 volunteers –…
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The Arab states of the Persian Gulf are the seven Arab states which border the Persian Gulf, namely Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).This excludes the non-Arab state of Iran. All of these nations except Iraq are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
