VOL. XLII

No. 28

12-July-1999

GCC

IMF World Economic Outlook Report

The latest World Economic Outlook (May) of the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF), which documents the effects of global economic slow-downand financial contagion, reports that oil revenues in the GCC countries fell byone third in 1998, causing fiscal balances to deteriorate by 5-8 percentagepoints. Given the short-term nature of reserve drawdowns and externalborrowing, the report points out that large oil exporters are faced with...