The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an association of thirteen oil producing countries working together for mutual financial interests. OPEC officially describes itself on the organization’s website “as a permanent intergovernmental organization” whose...

Notwithstanding the doom and gloom that often characterize the news coverage from Iraq, a few recent events show signs of economic revival-- and perhaps even economic energy. The first good news item comes with the International Monetary Fund statement issued on December 14, 2007, that Iraq has...

Readers of The MEMRI Economic Blog will find today two interesting items--an article about the blooming business of the wine industry in the Middle East, and a news item on the huge regional market for jewelry. Both items represent the ultimate ironies for today’s Middle East, with its...

The twin factors of the depreciation of the dollar and the rising inflation in the oil-producing members of the Gulf Council on Cooperation (GCC), have generated an unusual amount of analysis and speculation about the future of dollar peg in five of the six member countries of GCC. (Kuwait, the...

In a surprise move, the summit of the heads of the six member states of the Gulf Council on Cooperation (GCC) have extended an invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to their summit meeting, to be held in Doha, Qatar on December 3-4. It is the first time that Tehran is invited to...