What next for North Africa/Middle East?

vivatifosi

Thought it might be useful to dig out my CIA World Fact Book (a bit old - 2006 ed) and post the main exports/industries of the affected countries (rounded):

Syria: net petroleum exporter, foodstuffs: wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas, olives, sugar beet; cotton. Main export partners: Italy 22.7%, France 18%, Turkey 13%, Iraq 9%, Saudi >6%.

Yemen: net petroleum exporter, refiner; producer of qat (narcotic shrub), poor country. Main trading partners for exports: Thailand 34%, China 30%, Singapore 8%.

Libya: most of the economy run on oil. Some iron and steel production and foodstuffs/agriculture. Main trading partners for exports: Italy 37%, Germany 17%, Spain 12%, Turkey 7%, France 6%.

Tunisia: diverse economy with mining (phosphate and iron ore), tourism and energy sectors among those that are important. Main export partners: France 33%, Italy 25%, Germany 9%, Spain 6%. Has gas and oil reserves to meet own demand, exports some electricity.

Egypt: has the potential to become a gas exporter but only producing to own demands, textiles manufacture, chemical and cement production, foodstuffs. Main export partners: Italy 12%, US 11%, UK 7%, Syria 6%, Germany 5%, Spain 4%.

Bahrain: petroleum and refining account for 60% of export receipts. Offshore banking and tourism also key sectors. Export partners are not as concentrated as other countries.

Algeria: 95% of export earnings are from petrocarbons. Main export partners: US 23%, Italy 17%, Spain 10%, Canada 8%, Brazil 6%, Belgium 5%.

I know the data is a bit old, but the shape is interesting. I didn't realise that a lot of these countries are still minor players in energy.

Kohoutek

vivatifosi wrote: »

I didn't realise that a lot of these countries are still minor players in energy.

Virtually all the MENA countries have economies based on oil and gas export. Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel are the only ones that aren't from memory. The first three have massive subsidies on food and fuel though. Egypt and Tunisia are also self-sufficient, for now.

Yemen, Bahrain and Syria are having serious problems maintaining their oil production. They have 10 years at the most before they hit zero net exports, potentially a lot less. With those countries' populations increasing at such a rapid rate, per capita production is decreasing at much faster rate than actual production. Probably not a coincidence that those countries are in such a mess...hard to see how it can not get (much) worse though.

vivatifosi

Thanks kohoutek, interesting insight.

I've been ferreting around for news on the impact on the importing countries. Looks like Italy has been hit particularly hard:

http://www.euronews.net/2011/03/08/italy-pays-price-for-close-links-to-libya/

John_Pierpoint

vivatifosi wrote: »

Thanks kohoutek, interesting insight.

I've been ferreting around for news on the impact on the importing countries. Looks like Italy has been hit particularly hard:

http://www.euronews.net/2011/03/08/italy-pays-price-for-close-links-to-libya/

http://www.euronews.net/2011/03/15/thousands-of-migrants-swamp-lampedusa/

vivatifosi

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

http://www.euronews.net/2011/03/15/thousands-of-migrants-swamp-lampedusa/

I'd heard about Lampedusa and how many immigrants had landed there but it does seem incredibly harsh to turn a boat back to Libya under the current circumstances. It is almost twice as close to Tunisia as it is to Italy, so it is hardly surprising that boat people head there.

vivatifosi

A story of the bravery of a single woman telling her story emerging from Libya today. Iman Al-Obeidi is a Libyan woman, understood to be from Benghazi, who turned up at the journalist's hotel to tell her story of being detained, raped and beaten by Gaddafi's thugs. She was dragged away afterwards. I can only hope she survives this.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-af-libya-hotel-brawl,0,854730.story

vivatifosi

Comical Ali anyone?

A Libyan government spokesman is apparently reporting that there are mass demonstrations in the UK and tens of thousands of British Citizens are out in mass demonstrations in front of the British House of Parliament in protest over the imperialist aggression on the Great Jamahiriya!

globalds

Maybe time to resurrect an old thread....it being Easter


It would be nice to get an update from Hamish and Vivatifosi.

For what it's worth I think Syria will be the next one to blow up into a civil war/revolution.

Having watched some of the videos coming out of their it seems the next obvious step for the demonstrators is to start fighting back.

The constant shouts of Allah Akbah from the demonstrators in almost every tape I see from all countries with demonstrations may not bode too well for western style democracies flourishing in the future.

michaels

I think you missed the Yemen announcement this evening - al quaidi are big there - don't suppose the US or Saudi will be to pleased...

vivatifosi

globalds wrote: »

Maybe time to resurrect an old thread....it being Easter


It would be nice to get an update from Hamish and Vivatifosi.

For what it's worth I think Syria will be the next one to blow up into a civil war/revolution.

I've been disappointed by Assad's response in Syria. I believed - for a moment - that he may have turned the corner and brought in more democracy. The issue for me with Syria is what Iran does: Syria is very much an ally of Iran and it may be the case that Iran goes to Syria's aid, Israel won't like that - at all. What happens with Hezbollah (and the subsequent potential for impact on the Lebanon) is also important.

In terms of the Assad family, his wife - Asma - was born in the UK, so they may well be entitled to live here if it all goes wrong. She has a reputation for a brilliant analytical brain, so hopefully that will be put to good use for the future of the country.

What's also interesting in the case of Syria is the role that the internet continues to play in Middle Eastern unrest. Given the Syrian government has banned journalists from entering the country, YouTube has become an important method for letting both other Syrians and the world know what is going on.

The whole North Africa/Middle East situation will take a lot time to play out imo and we'll see the consequence in terms of uncertainty and high fuel prices for a couple of years yet.