Kuwait PM raises questions for region | The National

Kuwait PM raises questions for region | The National:

"When the prime minister of Kuwait warns Kuwaitis that the current welfare state is “unsustainable”, his words echo across the Arabian Peninsula. Speaking at the start of the week, Sheikh Jaber Al Mubarak Al Sabah said: “Everyone must understand that the existing welfare state that Kuwaitis are used to cannot continue. It’s necessary that Kuwaiti society shifts from a consumer of the nation’s resources to a productive people.”

Those words come after the International Monetary Fund warned last year that spending levels in the country would outpace revenues from oil by 2017. This in the country that is estimated to have the second largest oil reserves in the GCC and just over a million citizens.

As in Kuwait, so in the rest of the GCC. Every GCC country uses the cushion of energy reserves to provide a range of benefits for citizens. Even those countries, such as Oman, where oil production is modest compared to, say, Saudi Arabia, offer some subsidies."

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