Mubasher: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has expected that the GCC’s real gross domestic product (GDP) will grow 1.9% this year and 2.6% in 2019.

All the GCC countries recorded negative results following the revision of their real GDP, except for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, KAMCO Investment Company said in a statement released on Sunday.

“In 2019, IMF expects non-oil GDP growth for the region to stay stable at 2.7%, while the oil-GDP growth estimate of 2.2% year-on-year factors in higher oil production sequentially in 2019,” KAMCO noted, citing the Washington-based Fund as saying.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s non-oil economic growth is expected to soar 4.1% year-on-year over 2018 and 2019, it added. 

KAMCO further added that the “oil production estimate for the GCC was lowered by the IMF for 2018, but the projection represents a marginal increase from 2017 (17.43 million barrels/day), ascribed to a marginal production increase from Saudi Arabia (34.8 thousand barrels/day) in 2018.”

The recovery of oil prices due to production cut agreement boosted the GCC countries’ development and diversification plan, the Kuwait-based firm found.

“In terms of the breakeven oil prices required for GCC countries to balance their fiscal budgets, based on average oil prices seen in 2018 Year-to-day (%65/barrel/day), barring Qatar and Kuwait, all countries have higher breakeven oil prices,” KAMCO revealed.