Middle East's $2 Trillion Wealth Could Be Gone by 2034, IMF Says

(Bloomberg) — The Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf face a budget reckoning and risk squandering their $2 trillion in financial wealth within 15 years as oil demand nears peak levels, according to the International Monetary Fund. Global oil demand may start falling sooner than expected, putting a strain on the finances of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which accounts for a fifth of the world’s crude production, the IMF said in a report Thursday. Without decisive economic reforms, the richest Middle Eastern states could exhaust their net financial wealth by 2034 as the region becomes a net debtor, the fund projects. Within another decade, their total non-oil wealth...