Oil-dependent Gulf economies are expected to contract this year before rebounding in 2021, a Reuters poll among analysts has shown. According to them, Saudi Arabia’s economy will shrink by 5.2 percent this year. This is a significant downward revision on the previous quarterly forecast in the Reuters poll, which saw a 1-percent growth rate for this year and 2 percent for 2021. Now, the analysts expect the Saudi economy to grow by 3.1 percent in 2021. The reason the forecast is so different is that the last time the poll was conducted, no one could have anticipated the extent of the coronavirus outbreak’s fallout on ... (full story)