Skip to main content

If the price of oil goes up, the appetite for reform in Middle East will go down, IMF says

[ad_1]


"The region is recognizing the importance of the new cycle," Azour said, referring to a broader global economy recovery. "Yet they need to do more reforms in order to fully benefit from it."



A key challenge facing the MENA region was complacency resulting from higher oil prices. "If the oil price will go up, then the appetite for reform will go down," Azour warned. Also pressing on decision-makers was conflict and geopolitical issues arising in the region, as well as global risks such as tightening monetary policy and "inward looking policies in the West."



Azour cited Egypt as an example of a country that had begun to turn its economy around, with capital flows, exports and tourism — among other things — on the up. He described the need to "consolidate" reforms, "keep the discipline" and improve the country's business environment.



The Egyptian state needs to move to being an "enabler, rather than an operator," Azour said, as well as address structural issues such as allowing women "to participate in a greater way in the economy." According to the IMF's report, growth for Egypt, which has seen major political upheaval in recent years, remains unchanged at 4.3 percent for the fiscal year 2017.





[ad_2]

Share & Written By CNBC

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ice technicians are the secret stars of the Winter Olympics

[ad_1] The emphasis of this year's two-week-long Winter Olympic Games has been placed squarely on the Olympians themselves. After all, the stated purpose of the international competition is to bring together the world’s greatest athletes in a nail-biting competition across fifteen different winter sports. But before the curlers, skiers, and skaters even arrived in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the Olympians of the ice technician world were already a few weeks deep in a competition of their own. Mark Callan of the World Curling Federation and Markus Aschauer of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation both say they’re hoping to make the best ice the Winter Olympics have ever seen. To transform the barren concrete jungle of existing tracks and arenas into an ice- and snow-covered wonderland is an enormous undertaking. And it takes a keen understanding of the physics and chemistry that keeps frozen precipitation pristine. Curling Callan has been making and maintaining ice for m
Post a Comment
Read more

In the wake of NYC terrorist attack, Trump says he's ordered increased 'Extreme Vetting'

[ad_1] President Donald Trump has requested for a heightened vetting program following Tuesday's terrorist attack in New York. @realDonaldTrump: I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this! Earlier, he tweeted that the attack in lower Manhattan was committed by a "sick and deranged person." @realDonaldTrump: In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.! His remarks came after a motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people on Tuesday, leaving at least eight people dead and a dozen injured. NBC News repor
Post a Comment
Read more

How to save everything you post to social media

[ad_1] If you get the urge to revisit that cute photo you posted some time last year, you'll have to scroll through your timeline for what feels like hours to track it back down. Instead, when you share a post on social media, also save it to your phone for safe-keeping. This will not only save your social media hits for posterity, but also make them easier to find if you ever need to rediscover them. In this guide, we focus on saving photos and videos, because text posts are slightly more complicated—the only way to really preserve text from Facebook and Twitter is to download your entire archive (we'll explain how to do this below), and Instagram and Snapchat don't let you save or export your instant messages at all. When it comes to photos and videos, there's a shortcut to make sure they stay on your phone: Originally film them through a dedicated app, which will save them to a gallery. Only then should you open up a social media app to share them. However, there'
Post a Comment
Read more