Never has a trade policy backfired as spectacularly as Saudi Arabia's flooding of the oil market with cheap crude in a failed attempt to kill off the nascent US shale gas industry. For Saudi and its GCC neighbours, keeping the price of Brent down to around $45 per barrel, compared with $110 two years ago, is hitting government budgets hard. Across the GCC oil-related receipts are projected to fall by around $435 billion this year compared with 2014. Consequently, the aggregate current account balance in the region is projected to turn from a surplus of 8.25% of GDP in 2014 to a deficit of 4.5% of GDP in 2016.
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