The Global Financial Crisis and the Arab World: Impact, Reactions and Consequences

Much has been written on the impact of the global financial crisis on Europe, Asia and the Americas but only little on the Arab states. This article makes an early attempt to take stock of recent developments in the Arab world and offers a systematic approach to disentangle the various inter-linkages and effects of the crisis on the region. It argues that most Arab countries might be lucky and get off lightly, especially the energy-importing Arab countries which have proved not to be very vulnerable because they are only weakly integrated into global trade and capital markets. The energy exporters have been hit by the decline in energy prices, but most of them have also mastered the crisis well thanks to substantial financial reserves. The situation is more critical however for Dubai, Iraq and Yemen.