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Qatar’s gas-fuelled economic boom is reflected in a burgeoning population, which has soared by 128% in just six years to 1.69m people, according to the preliminary results of Qatar Statistics Authority (QSA)’s latest census.

While the secession of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) area has occupied most attention, a failure of state-building in post-Baathist Iraq might also see other regions looking for at least Kurdish levels of autonomy, if not outright independence. Of most concern to Baghdad would be the hydrocarbons-rich south. GSN spoke to a range of decision-makers in Basra to test the support for different kinds of decentralisation in the province, which has been called ‘the failed Gulf state’ by historians of the area

The Saudi economy did better last year than most analysts expected, with the 2010 budget, the Kingdom’s largest, showing the government’s determination to support the economy through trying times, according to Riyad Capital’s latest Quarterly Saudi Economic Report.

The International Monetary Fund has issued a relatively detailed Article IV report on the UAE for the first time in several years. It starts by outlining 2009’s “significant slowdown in growth and strains in the banking system as a result of the global financial crisis, the decline in oil prices, and the continuing fallout from the bursting of the Dubai property bubble”.

Dubai needs to improve its handling of the DW situation, Iraq taps new $3.6bn IMF programme

In the run up to announcing that Sanaa would negotiate a new agreement, the International Monetary Fund, on 8 January announced the conclusion of its 2009 Article IV Consultation with Yemen

The Central Bank of the UAE governor spoke to GSN about why the UAE pulled back from the current plan for GCC monetary union

The worst of the economic downturn is over, Dubai’s ruler said as he joined a chorus of Emirati voices emphasising federal unity – which may be significant after months of speculation over relations between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. In an apparently impromptu interlude in a prepared address at Merrill Lynch’s Mena equities conference, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR), who is also UAE vice president and prime minister, said ties between Abu Dhabi and Dubai should not be questioned.

Moody’s Investors Service on 9 June applied a ‘negative’ ratings outlook to Kuwait’s Aa2 sovereign ratings – a downgrade from the previous ‘stable’ – adding to investor discomfort during a period when Kuwait-based financial institutions have come under intense scrutiny.

Saudi Arabia, after all, is to house the planned Gulf Co-operation Council central bank. Following the 11th GCC consultative summit, held in the Kingdom on 5 May, the GCC’s outgoing secretary-general Abdelrahman Al-Attiyah announced that Riyadh would be the new joint monetary council’s base; this institution will eventually evolve into the GCC central bank.

International supporters of Iraq’s reconstruction are again seeking to address the major economic and social problems that tended to fall from view – at least outside Iraq – during the peak period of the insurgency.

it is not immune to the impacts of the global financial crisis, but scholars and financiers argue that this is a ‘golden opportunity’ to promote the Islamic finance industry as a more responsible alternative to conventional banking.

The extent of Dubai’s economic downturn is preoccupying many GSN readers. Here are some short attempts at answers to some deep, difficult questions: How deep is the crisis? – Dubai’s economic survival rests on its ability to refinance debt, but the extent of that debt is unknown.

Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency governor Hamad Saud Al-Sayari has said the Kingdom’s economy is not in recession and that the central bank will do what is necessary for the domestic economy.

Iraq’s financial situation is far from satisfactory. The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia have provided the country with something like $30bn but there are some signs of a growing reluctance to lend any more.