Resourceful, but hampered by war
When it comes to the MENA region: one thing is for sure: the low oil prices has affected the region, especially the Persian Gulf countries. Whereas Iran has shown resilient growth from the lifting of sanctions, Saudi Arabia is having a hard time adjusting to it, with fiscal spending to have slowed or grown to a halt.
Looking at some of the stats of the MENA region: When it comes to poverty, 1 in 3 live at or below the poverty line, which means making 2 dollars or less per day. Unemployment is a major problem for the MENA region, especially for the youth, which comes in on average at a little over 40%, the average being 25%. There is still economic growth, registering at 2.7% for 2016, with inflation at 5.3%. The MENA region accounts for approximately 6% of the world's population, which amounts to about 380 million people.
The problems of the MENA region lie in 2 areas: first, its the falling price of oil which has now stabilized: nonetheless, it is still far below what some of the countries are used to. Second comes investment: that is one of the key issues that plagues the economies. Imagine: with investment comes job creation. The answer has come from China, in which its announcement of investment will partially address this problem.
The potential collapse of the MENA Oil and Gas economy is not going to happen overnight, but the fuse has been lit nonetheless. The emerging trends that are contributing to this are clear, however, they are trends that are slowly gathering pace as they thrust their way into the global economy.
The first trend is the desire to seek alternative fuel. With nuclear fuel being far more efficient than fossil fuels, this is clearly the most economically devastating to the fossil fuel economy, however, the risks that couple this form of energy are high, with the cost of cleaning up any such disaster being extremely expensive on both an economic level, and a human one.
This therefore leads to the exploration and application of cleaner forms of renewable green energy. The MENA region is an excellent medium to seek to develop this, however, such projects are costly, and to start one up may not prove economically viable at first, hence outweighing the environmental benefits.
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