The Economic Development Of The Middle East

The two most important resources in this region are oil and water. The huge oil “deposits there and in the neighboring countries around the Persian Gulf (the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain) established these countries as some of the richest in the world” (Document F). Nevertheless, the countries who do not have as much access to oil are weak economically. Oil is the biggest export in the Middle East, and in a way, the amount of oil a country has determines how wealthy that country will be. Another component of oil is that countries and ethnic groups are disputing for the control of prices of this economic resource. It has gone to the far extent of foreign countries attempting to control the oil price and also the use of weapons for this (Document E). In addition, it is impossible for each country to have equal access to water due to the unbalanced distribution of these essential resources. As a result of this, these countries are fighting for as much control of water sources they can get. Radically, there are many countries in the Middle East that are striving to obtain as many natural resources to strengthen their economy and lifestyle, and it seems most obvious that the scarcity of these resources is a significant problem in the region

Finally, the most internal-facing explanation for the resource curse is the propensity of government institutions to become corrupt or careless and mismanage the oil wealth. This is easily understood in Jerry Useem’s “The Devil’s Excrement.” In the text, Useem uses Venezuela as a prime example of a country that has mismanaged its own resource wealth and as a result, ended up in poor economic condition. “Showered with sudden windfalls, governments start spending like rock stars, creating programs that are hard to undo when oil prices fall.” (Useem). As I touched upon in the cognitive explanation, the fast and unprecedented generation of oil wealth often excites these resource-rich countries to the point that they establish costly programs and facilities without considering sustainability. Then, once the oil price falls due to the fluctuating global market referenced above, the country has no way of maintaining these new programs and facilities that were previously

According to Diamond, oil-states can be generally defined as countries whose economies are dominated by oil. Among “the twenty-three countries whose economies are most dominated by oil today, not a single one of them is a democracy. (Diamond 74)” When oil initially becomes a large source of revenue for countries, negative effects immediately occur. One major reason for this is that when an economy is dominated by

Countries that do not promote accountability and state competence to benefit from resource booms are at risk of the resource curse. The resource curse is when resource-rich countries benefit from its wealthy natural resources (i.e. oil) and do not help with its people welfare. Its government officials are less likely to meet the demands of its people because they are too busy pocketing the cash. These countries are more deceptable to authoritarianism, low levels of economic growth and stability. Wealthy natural resources can promote power conflicts and corrupt governments. Countries that have a resource curse are more likely to transition to democracy when its large revenue comes from citizens ' taxes.

My objective in my research/analysis was to study some form of successful US foreign policy that acted as a substitute to foreign aid or benefited a developing/developed economy. The end of my research resulted in the policy recommendation that the United States should negotiate and enter into bilateral free trade agreements with Egypt and Pakistan under the parameters of lower tariffs/duties for imports, and complete transparency regarding trade policy. At the same time reduce and eventually eliminate the economic aid supplied to these two countries during a 5-year schedule after the enactment of the free trade agreement. The specific reductions would be aimed toward aid for economic growth, which totaled $45million in Egypt in 2016,

At the start of the 18th century, Middle Eastern countries witnessed their Eastern neighbors being overtaken by Western Europe and were faced with a choice: to pick apart or to be picked apart. It was from this dilemma that defensive developmentalism emerged in the Middle East. Empires such as the Ottomans, Persia, Tunisia, and Egypt began the process of centralizing their authority in order to assert effective control over their populations. The chief goal of defensive developmentalism for these empires was to assert their autonomy, whether that be autonomy from the Ottomans in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, or from outside imperialists in the Ottoman Empire and Persia. In order to accomplish these goals, defensive developmentalists undertook extensive reforms to establish their empires as relevant worldwide powers.

The discovery of oil in a low-income country is often met with both excitement and dread. Many theories circle around the idea of a “resource curse” that supposedly affects countries with large amounts of resources. The resource curse essentially dictates that a country with large amounts of resources is not as likely to thrive as a country with low levels of resources. The issue with this view is that it generalizes too much; there is just as much variance in the levels of economic success between resource-rich countries as there is between them and resource-scarce countries. This is why this newly found oil in this country does not necessarily need to be met with dread, as there is a chance for success. However, this newly found potential for wealth needs to be handled with extreme care. In the following memo I will outline what the resource curse is, why some countries are affected by it and others not, and finally I will outline how this country should handle its newly found oil wealth.

Saudi Arabia has an economy that is largely dependent on oil, with the government maintaining the biggest control over the country 's significant economic activities. Saudi Arabia owns about 16% of the global oil reserves and is the number one exporter of oil (Saudi Arabia, 2013). In addition, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was instrumental in the formation of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) group, which initially comprised Iraq, Venezuela, Iran, Kuwait and Venezuela (Energy indicators, 2004). Currently, the petroleum industry constitutes about 80% of the country 's budgetary incomes; about 40% of the country 's GDP and 87% of Saudi 's export earnings. Agriculture, in addition to petroleum products, has been a major contributor to the kingdom’s economy since 1970s (Saudi Arabia, 2013). The country has been able to produce enough agricultural products for their consumption as well as surplus for exportation to the GCC member countries.

Middle East considers one of the most studied areas in the world due to its rich history of politics, social, economic, and its culture and civilization. Its borders are still arguable geographically, generally in the west it starts from morocco until Iran in the east, however, many scholars don’t agree on including Turkey either as a Middle Eastern or as a European country (Milton-Edwards, 2006. P: 4). The origin of the name was invented by the colonies as a necessity to describe the place geographically, which was the era of bringing “Middle East” the language of academic writings and political scientists. Changes, innovations, and new ideologies create gaps between the transformations of any perspectives to a different

There are many significant change in the world economy occurred, marked by globalization each country has different speed of development under different political and cultural background. During this period, Such as the United States of America 's economic status from the rapid development to the decline, then move to the current stable trend. Brazil, Russia, India, China, which named ‘BRCIS’ those developing countries’ economic performances are very catch the attention in recent years. The decline and rise of these countries ' commercial economy are closely related to their political culture. Therefore, it attracted the attention of scholars and research circles.

The economy in the United Arab Emirates has experienced substantial increases in the last 40 years. The UAE’s capabilities with the pearling and oil industries have given the region its necessary budgets to expand so rapidly. The economic policies in the UAE have gone through stages, since the birth of the region in 1971. Changes in economic welfare of the markets, and privatization policies are also key aspects in understanding the UAE’s economic liberalization and growth. In order to understand the UAE’s economic standard, economic liberalization must be analyzed. The argument of this paper will discuss how economic liberalization has occurred in the United Arab Emirates and is continuing to grow.

The UAE is one of the riches nations in the world as measure by per capita GNP. The economy is primarily based on the oil

Many of the states were early signatories to BITs, agreements prepared by capital exporting states. In the early 1980s, the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO) which was formed in 1956, published three draft BITs, which provided different models of investment liberalization and protection.(41) In 1980, the United treaties Agreement for the Investment of Arab Capital was signed in the Arab States creating an Arab Investment Court and its first decision was given in the case of Tanmiah v. Tunisia, 12 October 2004. In addition, the European Economic Community (EEC) and some African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states concluded the Lom? III and Lom? IV Conventions, both of which had sections addressing investment.(42) In 2007, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) embraced an Investment Agreement for the COMESA Common Investment Area. (43) In 1987, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) created the Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (ASEAN Investment Agreement) applicable to ASEAN investors. The ASEAN Investment Agreement was considered in Yaung Chi Oo Trading Pte. Ltd. v. Myanmar. The ASEAN Investment Agreement was amended by the Jakarta Protocol in 1996. In 1998, the Framework Agreement on the ASEAN Investment Area (Framework Agreement) was concluded.

The extensive roles of energy in economic growth are well known. Kaiser, Mark .J (2007) posits that there is a solid relationship between national economy and energy development, as energy supply, demand and pricing have enormous influence on economic growth. With the fast pace of economic development over the past decades, many developing nations experienced a sharp annual growth in petroleum demand. However, those with large or potentially large petroleum deposits, very sufficient and financial resources for supply investments, especially for the development of oil and gas production and exploration.

The Middle East region is a conservative cultural and religious area that grew at only half the rate of other developing countries during the 1990s. A number of factors such as structural imbalances, the so-called 'curse of natural-culture and religious conflicts, are highlighted for the slow economic development in the Middle East. Similarly, Abed (2003) identifies five main causes holding back the economic growth of the Middle East i.e. lagging political reforms, dominant public sector; underdeveloped financial markets; high trade restrictiveness and inappropriate exchange regimes. apart from these , some of the others factors include the lack of integration into the global