Analysis for the Knowledge Economy in GCC Countries

Abstract

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries endowed by oil and gas. This towards their economies to be highly dependent on oil and gas extraction activities, which made its economy vulnerable to economic fluctuation as a result of uncertainty of oil and gas prices. This towards GCC governments to implement policies to support economic diversification to strengthen the business environment and increase the share of non-hydrocarbon sector. One of these sectors is the Knowledge economy which became one of the main engines of economic growth in recent decades. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the knowledge economy in the GCC countries. The Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM) was developed to facilitate countries trying to make the transition to the knowledge economy. KAM consists of five main pillars: (i) Performance; (ii) Institutions; (iii) Education and HR index; (iv) Innovation system index and (v) Information Infrastructure index. The five pillars have been analysed for the GCC countries from 2010 to 2017. Although that KAM has been used widely, the last available data on the world bank databank was for 2012. This was a limitation of the study. To eliminate this limitation the researcher collected the data about the same five pillars from the global competitiveness report. The financings of this chapter that the macroeconomic environment and Institutions are the highest scores in the KEI for GCC, this reflects the stability of the macroeconomic environment and the being of strong the Institutional framework and facilitates the flow of new or existing knowledge. Innovation pillar is the latest contributor of KEI for GCC countries. There is the need for GCC countries to increase the capacity for innovation and the quality of scientific research institutions. Although the increase in the spending on R&D and attempts to increase the university-industry collaboration in R&D still more is required for these promising countries. Many GCC countries have taken speedy steps in this direction, however more are still required specially in the area of availability of scientists and engineers, application of patents and intellectual property protection.