The Economies of the Middle East

222 Pages·1979·11.088 MB·English

by  Rodney Wilson (auth.)

THE ECONOMIES OF THE MIDDLE EAST
By the same author
TRADE AND INVESTMENT IN THE
MIDDLE EAST
THE ECONOMIES OF THE
MIDDLE EAST
Rodney Wilson
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ISBN 978-1-349-03423-9 ISBN 978-1-349-03421-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-03421-5
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Contents
List ofTables vii
A cknowledgements ix
Introduction xi
Iran: from Third to First W orld 1
Industrialisation at Any Price 3
A Workshop Economy 8
The White Revolution 12
An AchilIes Heel 15
2 Egypt: theGhostofMalthus LingersOn 20
A Squeeze on Resources 21
New Organisation, Old Bureaucracy 26
The Burden ofDefence 30
Cinderella Approaches Midnight 36
3 Saudi Arabia: Enigmas of aRentier Economy 40
Wealth and Waste 40
Consumption without Production 43
The Asset Dilemma 47
4 Israel: Self-help or Client State? 54
An Economy under Siege 55
Nationhood for Whom? 58
The Jewel ofthe East 63
Master or Puppet? 65
5 The Gulf: Absorption for What? 71
A History ofVulnerability 73
Diversification at a Price 76
vi The Economies ofthe Middle East
The Diseconomies ofCompetition 79
Riches for Some 82
6 Turkey: a Question of Alignment 87
The Ashes of Empire 88
Bridge or Divide? 90
The Prodigal Returns 97
7 Iraq and Syria: Revolution without Renaissance 101
Revolutionaries versus the Oil Monopoly 102
Birds of a Feather Flock Together? 107
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back 108
Socialist Myths 111
Rhetoric and Reality 113
8 The Yemens and Oman: Far Away but Not Forgotten 119
Glorious Past and Ignominious Present 121
Struggle on the Arabian Fringes 123
A Tempting Dependence 126
Marxism and the W orId ofIslam 132
9 Libya and the Sudan: Rich Man, Poor Man 137
Arabs in Africa 139
Lands ofThirst and Plenty 143
N eo-colonialism in Reverse 147
10 Lebanon and Jordan: Enclaves ofCapitalism 152
TheFixer 154
Small is Beautiful 159
Goodbye Mr Chips 162
11 Conclusions 167
Poles Apart 168
Inequality or Independence? 170
Appendix A Periodic Publications on the Economies of
the Middle East 173
Appendix B Selected Statistical Indicators 176
Notes 183
Index 203
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Investment expenditure under Iran's Development
Plans 5
1.2 Urban industrial establishments by size in Iran 10
2.1 The population and food balance in Egypt 24
2.2 The economic bur den of defence expenditure in
Egypt and Israel 33
3.1 Saudi Arabian oil exports and revenue 42
3.2 Balance of payments and reserves of Saudi
Arabia 49
3.3 Reserve holdings ofthe Saudi Arabian Monetary
Agency 52
4.1 Population of Palestine by ethnic group 62
4.2 Impact of international assistance and resti-
tutions on Israel's balance of payments 66
5.1 Crude oil production in the Gulf 72
5.2 National origins of Kuwait's immigrant popula-
tion 84
6.1 Turkey and its neighbours: some economic com-
parisons 92
6.2 Turkey's payments with the EEC 98
7.1 Importance of oil in the economy of Iraq 106
7.2 Price mark-ups in Syrian agriculture 114
8.1 F oreign assistance to the Yemens 126
8.2 Significance of workers' remittances for the bal-
ance of payments ofthe Yemens 130
9.1 Arab Fund projects in the Sudan 144
9.2 Recent trends in Sudanese cotton exports 148
10.1 Employment by sector in Jordan and Lebanon 156
10.2 Size of industrial firms in Lebanon and Jordan 161
B.l Demographie variables 177
B.2 Educational indicators 178
viii The Economiesofthe Middle East
B.3 Sectoral shares ofGross Domestic Product 179
B.4 Expenditure ofGross Domestic Product 180
B.5 Earnings and taxation from national income 181
B.6 Oil production 182
Acknow ledgements
In preparing a work such as this I have incurred an enormous debt to
many friends, teachers and colleagues, whose ideas I have absorbed in
discussion or in reading. As with my earlier study, I again must express
my gratitude to Dr Dick Lawless, head of the Middle East Documen
tation Centre in Durham, for the help he has given me in collecting ma
terial. Without the valuable collection of source material on the M iddle
East that he has managed to amass at the Centre, my task would have
been much more difficult and time-consuming. I would like to thank
Professor Walter Elkan, formerly of the Department of Economics of
Durham, and now of Brunel, for his helpful comments on the chapter
on Iran. Dr William Haie ofthe Politics Department of Durham offered
useful advice on the chapter on Turkey, while Dr Clive Sinclair, Shell
Research Fellow in Economics at Durham, read and commented on the
chapter on the Yemens and Oman. My work has in general without
doubt benefited as a result of the discussions I have had with Professor
Denis O'Brien, head ofthe Department ofEconomics in Durham.
No amount oftime spent studying the Middle East from the outside
can be a substitute for actually visiting the countries of the region, and
maintaining direct contact. The people I have met during my frequent
visits to the area are too numerous to mention, but I must acknowledge
the assistance of Durham University's Middle East Travel Fund for
making many of those v!sits possible. In addition I would like to thank
Lovaine Ord for the ca re taken in typing and correcting the manuscript
in the midst of her many office duties. Lastly, but quite the opposite of
least, I would like to thank my wife Barbara for her help and encour
agement, though it is impossible to express adequately in words all that
Iowetoher.
March 1978 R.W.