Featured by OBG
Kuwait is advancing a broad reform agenda under the New Kuwait 2035 development plan, aiming to strengthen economic resilience and diversify beyond hydrocarbons. Recent governance and fiscal reforms, including the passage of a new public debt law, are expected to expand financing options and support capital market development. At the same time, investment in infrastructure, logistics, digital technology and industry is creating new opportunities for private sector participation. While the energy sector continues to anchor the economy, expanding activity in finance, ICT and trade is helping to broaden growth drivers. Parallel investment in education, health care and cultural infrastructure is also strengthening human capital and quality of life, positioning Kuwait for more diversified and sustainable long-term growth.
The fall in oil prices led to significantly reduced government revenues for Kuwait in 2015. Despite this the country’s 2016 spending remained largely in line with previous years as the government opted to draw on its considerable financial buffers to help make up for budgetary shortfalls.
The most populous country and arguably the largest economy on the continent, Nigeria is widely regarded as an African powerhouse.
The Indonesian government is in the midst of pursuing an ambitious new growth strategy, emphasizing investment over domestic consumption as a primary growth driver in the wake of depressed commodity prices, lagging household consumption and lower-than-anticipated government revenues.
A country of extraordinary diversity, spread across some of the world’s most spectacular, and often inhospitable, terrain, Papua New Guinea today is a country once again at a crossroads. A major economic boom driven by a massive liquefied natural gas project has been swiftly followed by a sharp slowdown as global oil prices fell, and as a result the government has come under some pressure.
With the fall in oil prices underlining the dangers of an over reliance on hydrocarbons revenues, Qatar has continued to forge ahead with its economic diversification drive in 2016. Non-hydrocarbons growth now outstrips hydrocarbons growth, with several big-ticket construction projects, an increasingly dynamic financial services sector and a growing reputation as a tourist destination all fuelling non-oil expansion.
