TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DUBAI HIGH oil prices, witnessed during the past year, have contributed to the achievement of profitable revenue growth in the economies of the Arab oil-exporting countries, said Forbes-Middle East in its ‘2011 Top Performing Economies in the Arab Region,’ released on Monday.

According to the report, Saudi Arabia topped the list of the top performing economies in the region, followed by the UAE in second place, Qatar came third while Oman occupied the fourth place.

“The results of the study showed that those countries have taken advantage of the surplus revenues to increase spending on investments in domestic infrastructure and other vital sectors, such as health and education, in addition to raising their people’s standards of living, as most of those countries have approved significant increases in employee wages,” Forbes said.

“Morocco deserved to win, with distinction, the first place amongst Arab non-oil exporting countries,” the report said.

It occupied eighth place on the list as it achieved GDP growth rate of nearly 4.6 percent.

Trying hard to get out of the cycle of the world’s poorest countries, Mauritania comes in ninth place on the list, achieving a growth rate of 5.1 percent. Jordan occupies tenth place, with its economic institutions working hard to implement a financial policy that can rescue the country, get it out of its debts that exceed $19 billion, and improve its growth rate that reaches 22.5 percent.

“Given that the Arab Spring hasn’t reached these countries, the internal stable security has proved beneficial,” the report added.

On the other hand, Syria, Tunis, Egypt and Bahrain, have largely been affected by the popular revolts and the high oil prices as they are oil importers. Those two factors stand behind the decline in most of their economic indicators, such as foreign currency reserves and foreign investments. Meanwhile; those countries occupied places from 11th to 14th, respectively.

Lebanon occupied 15th place as it was affected by the events on its borders with Syria, granting the “Cedar Country” the title of “Master of Debts”, as Lebanon’s Public Debt rate reached 126 percent of its Domestic Product.

“We can understand why Sudan, which suffered much during 2011, occupies second place at the bottom of the list, especially, as the Khartoum government had lost more than half its oil supplies due to the disengagement of Southern Sudan from the North, the report said.

Yemen occupies the last rank in the list, to be the poorest Arab country that possesses the worst economic policy performance at the level of the MENA region.

The study is part of Forbes Middle East’s interest in assisting governmental financial and economic planning sectors to develop and build future economic policies, based on accurate and objective data and analysis.

The magazine also aims to provide the Arab readers all over the Arab world with a comprehensive panorama about the most important financial and economic events and facts, the region has witnessed in 2011.