“According to a 2005 World Bank report, Finland, with a population of about 5 million, has more non-oil exports than the entire MENA region, with a population of more than 300 million people...
As Tarik Yousef has emphasized in a recent paper, unemployment rates in the region are already among the highest in the world, second only to those in sub-Saharan Africa. If allowed to grow, unemployment could pose a threat for social and political stability. To absorb the currently unemployed in addition to new entrants to the labor force, job creation must be even higher: close to 100 million new jobs by 2020. Again, Tarik Yousef noted that this is equivalent to creating as many jobs in the next 15 years or so as has been done over the past 5 decades. In a 2005 report on economic developments and prospects for the MENA region, the World Bank pointed out that job creation on this scale probably requires real GDP growth of 6 to 7 percent annually for a sustained period of time, double the average rate of about 3 percent per year achieved over the late 1990s.”
- Opening Remarks by Takatoshi Kato, Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, At the High-Level Seminar on: "Institution and Economic Growth in the Arab Countries"
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Sustaining Gains in Poverty Reduction and Human Development in the Middle East and North Africa
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