Middle East & Africa

E-commerce and online retail are getting bigger by the day across the Middle East, thanks to growing internet usage and a young, tech-savvy, and fashion-conscious population.
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In the light of continued domestic as well as external pressures, the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook review anticipates the Middle East and North Africa region’s real GDP to expand 4% in 2011. Regional inflation is expected to reach 10.2% for 2011.
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South Africa ^Updated
South Africa officially fell into recession for the first time in 17 years in May 2009, cutting short its decade long period of expansion. However, with the help of a string of instantaneous measures, South Africa managed to pull out of the recession as soon as November 2009, when it recorded a tiny but significant growth of 0.9% in the third quarter.
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Morocco ^Updated
When the global financial crisis hit the world, Morocco was remarkably resilient. The country’s prudence in the past came to the rescue. Strong macroeconomic policies, limited exposure to foreign financial markets, stringent banking supervision and sufficient international reserves ensured that Morocco’s problems were temporary.
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Israel ^Updated
Now that the worst of the economic fallout from the global financial crisis is in the past, Israel can focus on administering macroeconomic policies that will sustain the country’s growth, which bounded up by 4.4% in the fourth quarter of 2009, its fastest rate in two years.
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Egypt ^Updated
A stable political environment, prudent policies reinforced since 2004, unrelenting domestic demand and limited exposure to world markets formed a sound economic foundation to insulate Egypt from the financial crisis.
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