Oil price turmoil: How Saudi Arabia's $100bn gambit could backfire
MIDDLE EAST EYE
…"Since the last oil price cut, the GCC has burned through foreign reserves, but they rode it out. The discussion now is that they can’t do it this time," said Guy Burton, adjunct professor at Vesalius College in Brussels and a former assistant professor at the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government in Dubai.
…"There is a need to rethink these Vision 2030s, and revise them. Covid-19 has also destroyed plans," said Burton, with Riyadh having cancelled the Umrah pilgrimage this year and Dubai's 2020 World Expo in doubt.
…Burton said that as Saudi Arabia and other GCC states have been diversifying foreign investments, particularly to East Asia, the main buyer of Gulf crude, there is largess to weather a drop in oil prices.
"There is a deepening of economic relations, and it is both ways, between the Gulf and Asia. You can see they are hedging their bets," said Burton.
