The Al-Shall Center for Economic Consultations stated that Kuwait has become the lowest expected growth country among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in 2023, according to the forecasts of the International Monetary Fund, as its expected growth rate reached about half the rate of the second lowest country (Oman), and a third of the expected growth for Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. And about a quarter of the expected growth rate for the UAE.
Al-Shall stated in its weekly report that this is an indication of the level of oil addiction that Kuwait has reached, while its economic and financial policy is still deepening its level of addiction, adding that “those who are unable to achieve can only persevere in populism, and the task of the new economic administration is a pivotal one, as the threat It has become a reality about the future of young people in their blatant unemployment, education and services, and even retirees will not be spared from it, reports Al-Rai daily.
The report pointed out that the IMF reduced its forecasts to 2.9 percent for the year 2023 for the growth of the economy of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, while expecting it to grow by about 3.6 percent in the estimates of the October 2022 report, indicating that between October 2022 and April 2023, a barrel of Brent crude oil rose about 11.3 percent from its price level despite the reduction in production, and the oil-producing countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council cut their production twice, or by 9.3 percent.
The report pointed out that the loss of prices and the loss of production result in lower oil revenues, so the reduction of growth expectations for the GCC countries remains within the limits of logic, adding: “Within the limits of logic, that reduction is directly proportional to the degree of increase in the rate of dependence of each country within those countries on oil.”
The report indicated that the highest absolute reduction in the expected growth rate was in Oman, whose expected growth rate fell from 4.1 percent in the last October report to 1.7 percent in the current April report, while the highest expected relative reduction was in Kuwait, whose growth expectations fell from 2.6 percent in the report last October to 0.9 percent in the current April report.
In its report for April 2023 on the potential performance of the global economy, the IMF still excludes the world entering a period of recession, i.e. negative growth, and in fact it raised its expectations for growth in 2023 by about 0.2 percent, an increase over the expectations of its report for the month of October 2022, albeit It is about 0.7 percent lower than the expectations of its report for the month of April 2022.
The report indicated that most of the support for the IMF’s expectations came from the two largest economies in the world, the United States of America, whose economy accounts for about 25.5 percent of the size of the global economy, as the Fund raised its expectations for its growth rate from 1 percent to 1.6 percent, and China and its share of about 18.4 percent of the size of the global economy, as the Fund increased its growth expectations from 4.4 percent to 5.2 percent, and Germany, the fourth world economy, participated with them, with a slight increase of about 0.2 percent, although its expected growth remained negative by about -0.1 percent.
