ABSTRACT
The Arabian Peninsula states have several distinct economic characteristics which set them apart not only from the rest of the world, but also from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. They have vast oil and gas reserves, the world’s largest if measured in barrels of oil per capita, yet unlike many other oil-rich states have very small populations, smaller still if expatriate workers – the majority of the labour force – are factored out. In many respects, their basic infrastructure is comparable to Europe’s, education for all Gulf nationals is free including at tertiary level as is access to a universal healthcare system. Most nationals work in the public sector and must be among the world’s highest paid civil servants while the private sector is staffed almost exclusively by expatriates and in the unskilled sector predominantly by economic migrants from South and South East Asia. Hence these states are often classified as ‘resource rich, labour poor’.
