26 April 2016 – On behalf of the Asian Ambassadors Group in Doha, Philippine Ambassador to Qatar Wilfredo C. Santos hosted a dinner and lecture on April 21 at Hwang, Intercontinental Doha - The City, with the topic “The Political Implications of the Oil Crisis in the Middle East.”

Guests of honor include Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Chief of Protocol, Ambassador Ibrahim Yousif Abdullah Fakhro, Director of the Asian Affairs Department Khalid Abdulrahman Al-Hamar, and outgoing Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Dr. Gerd Nonneman, who lectured on the said topic.

On a regional standpoint, Dr. Nonneman said that the introduction of US shale oil, which triggered the oil crisis, changed the global dynamics and shown that OPEC and Russia are no longer the dominant players.

He specifically cited Qatar’s stability amidst the crisis as guided by its investment priorities, generous sovereign wealth fund, and large reserves. Paraphrasing Dr. Nonneman’s statement, “Qatar’s effort to downsize only required it to trim the fat and not really cut into the bone.”

Together with Qatar, Dr. Nonneman also sees UAE and Kuwait as among the GCC countries that will be less affected by the oil crisis. Meanwhile, non-oil exporting countries in the Middle East were more affected than the oil exporting countries as the flow of remittances, bilateral aid and investments into the former have been stifled by the crisis.

The oil crisis has also led GCC countries to reassess its economic policies, including the need for economic diversification, cutting expenditures, change in attitude towards subsidies and implementation of the VAT, and the importance of military service as a tool for nation-building.

This new format of the regular get-together of the Asian Ambassadors group that includes inviting a guest speaker to speak on current important issues was initiated under the Chairmanship of Malaysian Ambassador Dato Ahmad Jazri Mohd Johar. END