Charts of the Week 1. Spread of Covid19 in the GCC Most GCC nations have begun a phased re-opening of their economies after being in partial/ complete lockdown for weeks.... Read More
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Articles, Op-eds & Blog Posts
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This article appeared in the print edition of Gulf Business, August 2020, which can be accessed online. Flying together:... Read More
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Recent & Upcoming Events
Jun 17: “Stability Redefined- Who Authors the Future?”: e-Policy Circle 7 webinar (invite only)
Jun 15: Discussion on Lebanon with Carnegie Middle East Center (invite only)
Jun 4: Panelist at OMFIF webinar on Sovereign debt restructuring in emerging markets
May 22: Speaker at the YPO Lebanon webinar
May 17: Panelist at Sheikh Rashed Virtual Majlis on the “Effects of COVID19 on the UAE’s economy”
May 13: Panelist at NUS Middle East Institute webinar “The GCC’s Double Dilemma: Tackling COVID-19 and Falling Oil Prices”
May 6: Panelist at the CEBC webinar “A Pandemic, Oil Price Collapse, A Recession: Is the Future still Green?”
Publications / All
The MENA-OECD Working Group on Investment and Trade‘s 2018 meeting was... Read More
The commencement speechat the Universite St. Joseph was delivered by... Read MoreIn the Media
Dr. Nasser Saidi was on CNN International’s Quest Means Business programme on 5th of Aug 2020. Following the blast in Lebanon’s capital city Beirut, Dr. Saidi said the “political message” to Lebanon has to come from the rest of the world, “and it is urgent. We don’t want another failed state on the Mediterranean coast…the rest of the world really cannot afford that.” Watch the interview below:
This article appeared in the print edition of Gulf Business, August 2020, which can be accessed online. Flying together: Are mergers the way ahead for the GCC’s airline industry post pandemic? Cost cutting measures by airlines will not suffice to stem the hemorrhage Covid-19 has devastated the global aviation industry along with the tourism and hospitality industry. Even though domestic travel resumed in many nations (in Saudi Arabia, US and China among others) and flying restrictions eased (e.g. intra-Europe flights, UAE’s Etihad and Emirates are each flying to over 50 destinations), 42 per cent of all global commercial airlines fleet are still grounded, according to research by Cirium [at... Read More
The article titled “How to save Lebanon from looming hyperinflation” was published in The National on 31st Jul 2020. The original article can be accessed here & is also posted below. How to save Lebanon from looming hyperinflation To bring the country’s economic chaos to an end, it is important to examine how it all began In June 2020, Lebanon’s inflation rate was 20 per cent, month-on-month. In other words, prices in the country were, on average, 20 per cent more than they were a month before. Compared to a year earlier, in June 2019, they had nearly doubled. Lebanon is well on its way to hyperinflation – when... Read More
Dr. Nasser Saidi’s interview comments appeared as part of the Arab News article titled “Lebanon faces the abyss as political elites dither” dated 28th July 2020. The comments are posted below; access the complete news article (including sound bites from Dr. Saidi) here. “The view of the Hirak (Lebanon’s protest movement) is that we probably need a total breakdown before we can change things,” said Nasser Saidi, Lebanon’s former economy and trade minister and founder of Nasser Saidi & Associates. “I love this quote from Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa: ‘We have to change everything if nothing is to change.’ “It’s only when it becomes practically unliveable that you are going to... Read More
Dr. Nasser Saidi was interviewed by the Managing Editor of Forbes Middle East, as part of their Leaders’ Insight series, to breakdown the factors leading up to the economic uncertainty in Lebanon and to understand the way forward. Watch the interview below:
