ABSTRACT
Emphasis in the Arab countries on the construction and equipping of infrastructure has been a marked feature of development in the post-war period. This is not to belittle the significance of other sectors, nor is it to underestimate the transformation in the structure of Arab economies in the direction of non-agricultural activities during the post-war period. The assertion that it is not common economic features that essentially unite the Arab world and distinguish it from other regions does not imply the absence of regional economic peculiarities or the futility of the attempt to identify and analyse such peculiarities as exist. The discovery and exploitation of oil resources predates World War Two in some of the countries surveyed here, but the post-war period witnessed the substantial, indeed the dramatic growth of the oil sector. As the relevant statistics and discussion in the country chapters have shown, information on labour supply and active labour force is scanty and unsatisfactory.
