Farouk Soussa, chief economist for the Middle East for banking group Citi, believes trading prospects to/from the region will be extremely challenging in both the short and medium-term.
Addressing the TOC Supply Chain Middle East 2011 conference being held in Dubai, he said: 'Trading prospects are not very good as growth in the global economy is weakening and recently the oil price "tanked".

He continued: 'It leads me to think that trade in Q4 11 will soften while government investment could come under pressure from the lower oil prices.
'We see the oil price at an average of USD75 per barrel next year which is below what a country like Saudi Arabia needs to pay for its massive infrastructure improvement programmes. These are challenging times.'

Nonetheless, he did not feel it was all 'doom and gloom', suggesting that intra-regional trade would increase and that Dubai, Iraq and Saudi Arabia still offered 'exceedingly good opportunities'.
'I see Saudi Arabia continuing to spend, Dubai capitalising on its well-established regional trading/economic opportunities and Iraq benefiting from its reconstruction and aggressive industrialisation programmes.'

He added: The Saudiasation programme aimed at providing employment for young nationals will further stimulate demand in that country as will the Iraqi Government's plan to raise oil output from 2.7 million barrels a day currently to as many as 12.7 million barrels a day by 2017.'