Six Persian Gulf states now have almost $1,600bn in foreign assets, dwarfing even China’s mammoth $1,100bn of foreign reserves, according to a new report from the Institute of International Finance.
The IIF report attempted to assess how the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council had deployed their “oil windfall” in recent years. But it noted an “extraordinary deficiency” of information on the capital flows and foreign asset holdings of the GCC’s members, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. As well as traditional dollar investments, the IIF said evidence also suggested the six countries had “a strong interest in investments in emerging markets, particularly in the Middle East region and east Asia.”
