The Gulf countries (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar – are experiencing an economic boom. The discipline of the cartel of oil-producing countries and international geopolitical tensions are keeping oil and gas prices high and feed into the fiscal and external accounts of countries still highly dependent on oil revenues. Contrary to previous periods of economic upturn, it seems that most governments are maintaining a degree of fiscal discipline, which, over the medium term, should reduce vulnerability to variations in oil revenues. In the longer term, climate change and the associated energy transition pose an existential challenge for these hydrocarbon-based economies
