Körfez ülkeleri altı aylık savaşın ardından ekonomik toparlanmada zorlanıyor

Gulf states struggle to recover economically after 6 months of war

The Persian Gulf’s extraordinary wealth has long rested on an assumption of stability. The past six months of war have shattered that certainty, exposing a fundamental weakness in Gulf economic models: producing oil and gas is only half the equation when infrastructure and access to global markets can be disrupted. Ports, airports, power grids, desalination plants, financial centers, and tourism hubs are all vulnerable to the same regional shocks. The energy sector is particularly exposed, with damaged oil and gas facilities potentially taking months or longer to repair. Yet restoring production may prove easier than restoring confidence that Gulf exports can reliably reach global markets. Each Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state enters this new era from a different starting point. Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain are particularly exposed because of their reliance on Gulf maritime routes, including the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has greater flexibility thanks to its East-West pipeline, as does the United Arab Emirates because of its oil export hub at Fujairah, which lies on the safe side of the Strait. Oman is also well-insulated, with its key export infrastructure beyond the Strait. In search of resilience, these states are now building alternative export routes, expanding overseas production, strengthening strategic inventories, and dispersing critical infrastructure. “The war doesn’t change the fact that the Gulf’s huge low-cost oil and gas reserves are the world’s most profitable,” Jim Krane, the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow for Energy Studies at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, told RS. “But the war signals to investors, including local national oil companies, that they may be prevented from moving cargoes to market.” Iran’s ability to close Hormuz adds a new layer of political risk, increasing the attractiveness of producers such as Algeria, Brazil, Mozambique, and the United States, which don’t have constraints on access to open seas, Krane noted. Restoring confidence Tourism and aviation face different challenges. Gulf hubs can restore flights, reopen airports, and offer incentives relatively quickly. Rebuilding the reputation for safety and reliability on which their business models depend is harder. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha spent decades turning geography into a competitive advantage through highly connected airports, hotels, business services, and predictable environments for travelers and expatriates. The war has challenged that proposition. Demand for hotels in Dubai, the most prominent tourist destination in the GCC, fell to 7-14% of pre-war levels throughout the first few months of the conflict, with the industry achieving a “gradual recovery” back to 20-30% of pre-war levels this summer. In the first week of the war alone, hotel reservation cancellations in Dubai exceeded 80,000 as hotels across the Gulf slashed rates to keep rooms filled. Gulf destinations are rolling out travel incentives and visa reforms to revive tourism, but these have produced “mixed results,” according to Joseph Kechichian, a senior fellow at the King Faisal Centre in Riyadh. “Practically speaking, the Arab Gulf region’s reputation as a safe and reliable destination for tourists, businesses, and expatriate workers will only be fully restored after the war ends,” Kechichian said. This comes down to individual perceptions, making the restoration of consumer confidence an “uphill struggle” for Gulf states, explained Rob Geist Pinfold, who teaches International Security at King’s College London. “This is one reason why they are so keen for the U.S. to make a deal with Iran, even one that is on Iran’s terms. There is a feeling that recovery can't happen while the guns are still firing,” he said. “Ultimately, the decisive factor will not be marketing but a sustained period without attacks, airspace closures or sudden disruptions, because tourists, multinational companies, insurers and expatriate workers need to believe that the Gulf has once again become insulated from regional conflict.” The issue of expatriates is especially important. “The Gulf’s economies depend on attracting highly mobile international labor. Executives, engineers, and professionals will tolerate considerable geopolitical risk if salaries are attractive and daily life remains predictable,” observed Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at the Defence Studies Department of King's College London. “They become much less tolerant once children’s schooling, family security, air travel, and access to basic services become uncertain.” Six states, different paths to resilience Saudi Arabia appears well-positioned to turn the crisis into strategic advantage. Its scale, geographic depth, Red Sea coastline, and East-West oil pipeline offer options unavailable to most neighbors. Yet Riyadh faces a difficult fiscal balance: Vision 2030 — the country’s ambitious plan to reorient its economy away from fossil fuels — requires massive investment even as defense, infrastructure protection, and economic resilience demand more resources. The likely result is reprioritization, with economically and strategically valuable projects advancing while some prestige initiatives are delayed or scaled back. The UAE possesses vast financial resources and a strategic advantage in Fujairah, which provides Indian Ocean access while bypassing Hormuz. But its broader economic model depends heavily on the Gulf’s reputation as a safe, reliable place to do business, making it vulnerable to prolonged disruption. Its priority will be to preserve the perceptions of seamless global connectivity that underpin the Emirati economy. Qatar, meanwhile, enjoys enormous sovereign assets and substantial financial buffers, but its economy remains highly dependent on uninterrupted LNG production and exports. Doha has also taken steps to shore up confidence in its financial system. “Doha recently repatriated an estimated $13 billion from Western holdings to shore up domestic liquidity and back local banks,” as Kechichian explained. The move helped offset non-resident deposit outflows, providing an additional buffer for the banking system as Qatar absorbs the economic shock. Qatar’s production center at “Ras Laffan has been restoring capacity, but even fully repaired liquefaction facilities do not solve the strategic vulnerability if LNG carriers cannot move predictably through Hormuz,” said Krieg. Doha has used Golden Pass (a U.S.-based LNG project owned largely by Qatar’s state-run gas giant) and cargo swaps (commercial agreements between parties to exchange or redirect contracted LNG shipments in order to bypass logistical bottlenecks) to compensate for some lost gas exports, but these measures cannot replace Qatar’s domestic production base. The crisis is likely to accelerate Qatar’s efforts to expand overseas energy investment and geographic diversification. “I would expect physical capacity to recover much faster than export normality,” Krieg said. Kuwait has substantial financial capacity to absorb a prolonged shock, but its geographic exposure to the Gulf limits that resilience. Damage to the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery and reliance on Gulf maritime routes highlight the vulnerability of concentrated export infrastructure. The crisis is also prompting Kuwait to accelerate diversification of its domestic energy supply. As Li-Chen Sim of the Middle East Institute noted, “Kuwait is accelerating the phased deployment of the Al Shagaya renewable energy complex, which had been held hostage to politics for years.” Kuwait can finance reconstruction, but executing such reconstruction with the speed and institutional agility of Saudi Arabia or the UAE is a challenge. Oman is arguably the sole GCC state whose strategic position has improved since February. With its export infrastructure outside Hormuz, Oman is relatively insulated from rising chokepoint risk, while Duqm and other Indian Ocean-facing assets could gain importance as firms seek logistics, energy, and industrial platforms less exposed to Gulf disruption. Muscat’s diplomatic role may also grow as GCC members seek workable arrangements with Iran. Bahrain is most vulnerable. Limited fiscal space, high debt, and small territory leave it highly exposed to the crisis. The archipelago nation lacks both strategic depth and the sovereign financial buffers needed to absorb prolonged disruption. But the crisis is also pushing Manama to reconsider its energy vulnerabilities: Bahrain is “now fast-tracking studies into offshore wind and cross-border solar projects,” including subsea connections to generation assets in Saudi Arabia, according to Sim. Its resilience will depend on support from larger GCC partners and a return to stability. The longer-term test may therefore be whether the crisis strengthens confidence within the Gulf itself. As Kechichian said, what may be required is “an acceleration of entrepreneurial efforts to encourage capable Arab Gulf minds to invest at home, trust their own populations, and applaud the creation of wealth across the board.” The goal, ultimately, is not simply to restore the prewar economy, but to convince domestic and foreign investors that the Gulf remains a place where capital can be deployed with confidence. Ultimately, the past six months have left the GCC members facing different levels of risk. None can simply abandon hydrocarbons or the globalized economic strategies that have made the Gulf prosperous. Instead, the defining question of the post-war period will be whether they can make those strategies resilient enough to survive the next disruption.