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This week brought more economic bad news for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised downward its forecasts for economic contraction this year as a result of both COVID-19 and declining oil prices, as we report here.
The IMF now projects a 7.6% contraction in gross domestic product, a key measure of economic output, for the GCC in 2020, compared with its April forecast that there would be a 3% decline this year.
Contributing to the drop is a projection that Saudi Arabia’s economy will shrink 6.8%, nearly tripling the April estimation of a 2.3% decline.
