Boom Amid Gloom: The Spirit of Possibility in the 21st Century Gulf

The first decade of the new millennium has witnessed wide-ranging transformations in the six countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). The oil boom of the last few years has served to highlight and accelerate growth in financial market activities across the Gulf region and in Islamic financial and banking activities overall. These countries entered unchartered waters through social and political experimentation, economic expansion, and asserting their influence internationally. These attempts stemmed not only from the realization that such a shift was inevitable, but also from their new found confidence that a blend of tradition and modernity can indeed survive alongside and complement each other. Boom amid Gloom is an empirical study of seven themes that help test the pulse of these countries and indicate where they are headed during the course of the next few decades. Some of these game-changers are central to understanding how the 2003-2008 oil boom ushered in and nurtured an unparalleled sense of hope in the region, even as the global economic slowdown spread gloom in many parts of the world. The book analyzes how the region stands on the threshold of evolving, from merely being oil-rich and rapidly modernizing to achieving a more balanced and sustainable model of overall development in the future.