Data Driven Decisions

Chapter 36The MENA Region

The Middle East and North Africa – MENA – is a remarkably unique, diverse, complex, and exciting part of the world. The region includes over fifteen nations, and some countries debate which nations belong in this classification. The purpose of this book is not to address those debates, but the most common inclusions for Middle East and North African countries are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, and other surrounding nations (Figure 36.1).

There are over five hundred million people in the Middle East and North Africa. The region speaks seventeen dialects of Arabic and has a GDP less than half the size of the United States. What is very interesting about the Middle East and North Africa are the population impacts of the region. There are five hundred and fifty million people with a GDP significantly less than the United States, which has a population of approximately three hundred and fifty million people.

The MENA economies are driven by two major categories. The first and most well‐known is energy, and this is largely a function of Saudi Arabia's presence in MENA, which includes the country having the second largest reserves of oil in the whole world, second only to Venezuela. Saudi Arabia has a GDP of over USD eight hundred billion, rapidly growing to one trillion. The second category of trade or value of the economy of the MENA region is general trade or agriculture. There is a significant amount of food, livestock, ...