Every once in a while I decide to torture myself and rummage through the IMF’s databases looking for interesting research and analysis. When I found a Selected Issues UAE Country Report by the IMF, I thought I’d try my luck.
The report, published this month, begins by looking at government-related entities (GREs), which is anything that the government owns shares in. It is important to note that the IMF repeatedly warns that it does not have all information on all GREs. It looks at about 60 companies, although one should bear in mind that the government holdings in some are too small to have any influence.
One of the early IMF comparisons that is striking is the return on assets (ROA) of the non-financial corporate sector across GCC countries over the period from 2007 to 2014. The UAE at 8.1% a year is higher only than Kuwait. Saudi Arabia at 9.6 per cent is about a fifth higher and Oman’s 13.3% is more than three-fifths higher. How then are we the commercial hub of the GCC?