ECM5921-Future Prospects And Challenges Of GFC

Your task Globalisation has resulted in a shift towards regionalism and bloc formation. Each group will be randomly assigned one of the following economic integration around the world:

 

1. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Free Trade Area (AFTA)Europen Union (EU)

 

2. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

 

3. Southern Common Market (Mercosur)

 

4. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)

 

5. Gulf Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) 6. CARICOM (Caribbean Community)

 

7. African Continental Free Trade Area
 

 

Introduction:

In 2017, The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has organised its 38^th Summit in Kuwait. However, this summit has experienced various troubles, as other GCC countries have sent comparatively low level of designations. Most of the Gulf leaders have denied attending the GFC summit, which further imply unsuccessful efforts of mediation, done by the Emir of Kuwait (Ulrichsen, 2017). Hence, it is essential to observe about the future prospects and challenges of GFC that the recent Summit has experienced.

Peak Crisis: The GCC Summit:

The recent crisis in relations among intra-Gulf has generated various threats regarding the creation of GCC, since 1981. After leaving, Kuwait has tried to overcome from the crisis. Emir of this country has also suggested that alternative to negotiation efforts of this country would be the possibility of taking military action against Qatar (Pinto, 2017). Moreover, the strategic importance of Gulf motivation for the source of energy and financial hub to the world could lead powerful countries like US, France and Russia and other countries across the world to help GCC during this crisis. However, these attempts to negotiate crisis failed due to Kuwait’s effort. This has become the chief reason for failing of last summit and consequently other countries could not accept this proposal (Saxena, 2017). By providing refusal to the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have accepted the negotiation efforts to resolve the crisis. From here, it can be stated that countries involved within this council, has tried to make a status quo as regulation. Their aim is not to obtain some set of goals, rather they has tried to drain Qatar. Hence, economic war has been observed within the countries.

Future Prospects:

The absence of heads of GCC countries in last summit has not been considered as the only reason for failing GCC in future. Three GCC countries have denied acknowledging the actual reason of crisis during this summit along with ministerial level discussions, assisting for destroying any chance that the meeting among leaders of GCC could facilitate the resolution of crisis (Zeitun, Temimi & Mimouni, 2017). People of Qatar have not experienced difficulties from entering into the United Arab Emirates. 

Hence, in the last summit, GCC have remained unsuccessful to bring all six countries together while at the same time, Saudi Arabia and UAE have decided to plan for going alone and made a parallel grouping. Moreover, Bahrain has demanded to push out Qatar from the GCC. Thus, it could be stated that while GCC has proved itself the most successful organisation for inter-Arab action, the crisis of 2017 has brought difficulties to bring together of GCC has raised the question about existence of this council. In this context, one can easily observe the crisis regarding emergence of two different blocks in the GCC (Shahzad, Burhan, Ghaffour & Ng, 2018). The first one block has addressed about the grouping against blocade on Qatar that intends to establish harmonisation and uniformity all over the foreign policies of GCC. Secondly, Qatar and Oman intend to develop as independent countries while Kuwait has planned to follow the same path between these two countries. Hence, the ultimate outcome of Kuwait summit has derived the outcome the intensity and depth of the divisions for which GCC have divided.

The increasing risks experiencing by the Gulf States, especially those who have decided to restrict Qatar, have felt no reason to shift their view. The coalition between Saudi and UAE has become unsuccessful to achieve the objectives of humanitarian, which has become awful. The restricted countries of the GCC have depended on the support of USA for going against Iran. Consequently, the person has tried to plunge the entire area of Middle East into chaos through declaring the reorganisation of US with Israel (Ulrichsen, 2017). By normalising the relation between Arab and Israel, brinkmanship of the US president could be the greatest source of embarrassment to align the Arabian Peninsula.

Apart from this political scenario, these GCC countries can experience a healthy economic growth, as their rank as leading countries in terms of per capita income is top (Saxena, 2017). The current fluctuation in oil price has made economic condition of these countries as unstable one. They have understood that to keep their economic prosperity as stable in long-term, they need to diversify their economy. Consequently they intend to take socio-political reform by 2020.

Conclusion:

Hence, the failure of Kuwait Summit has declared to the world that the Gulf Cooperation Council has become paralysed. The outright collapse regarding the regional alliance along with tis break-up into two different parts can be one possible outcome. This consequence has made a departure from the actual intension of GCC that Saudi Arabia has stated five years ago. This statement has implied that GCC could be one of the greatest integration, where all countries could follow the path of unification. However, countries have deviated from this goal of GCC, as Riyadh has led its economic activities fragmented from GCC. Recent oil price fluctuation has made the economic condition of these GCC and consequently they are planning to reform their socio-political scenario. 

References:

Pinto, L. (2017). gulf State currency crisis. The International Economy, 31(2), 44-51.

 Saxena, S. (2017). Open public data (OPD) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Challenges and prospects. Contemporary Arab Affairs, 10(2), 228-240.

Shahzad, M. W., Burhan, M., Ghaffour, N., & Ng, K. C. (2018). A multi evaporator desalination system operated with thermocline energy for future sustainability. Desalination, 435, 268-277.

Ulrichsen, K. C. (2017). THE GCC CRISIS: REGIONAL REALIGNMENT OR PARALYSIS?. TURKISH POLICY QUARTERLY, 16(3), 71-79.

Zeitun, R., Temimi, A., & Mimouni, K. (2017). Do financial crises alter the dynamics of corporate capital structure? Evidence from GCC countries. The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 63, 21-33.