...Saudi ministers had just finished presenting an upbeat view of the kingdom’s economic prospects for 2019 at a December conference in Riyadh when a businessman sitting in the audience burst their bubble. After congratulating the officials on their growth predictions, Abdulaziz Al-Ajlan, a textile manufacturer, politely pointed out how little their outlook resembles reality. “Many small and medium-sized companies are shutting down,” he said. “We see companies firing Saudis.”
...Because their populations are young and demand that change happen quickly, Arab rulers “don’t have the luxury of time,” he says. ...‘If we can’t get everything now, we’ll never get it later!’ There was no trust.”
...it’s best to fix the roof when the sun is shining.
Since the oil crash, even rich Gulf Arab governments have been running large budget deficits. They may not be borrowing from the IMF, but they’re increasingly tapping global bond markets to plug the gap. Overall, countries in the Middle East and North Africa have accumulated foreign debt faster than their emerging-market peers since 2014,
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