CNBC reports that the International Monetary Fund has raised its economic outlook for the Middle East and North Africa region’s growth in 2020 by 1.2 percentage points to an overall contraction of 3.8%, showing that despite some progress since the coronavirus pandemic began, it’s still been a brutal year by any account.   

Recovery will be varied and based largely on countries’ investments and strategies for vaccine distribution. But there has been one bright spot for the Gulf states in particular — the lifting of the political and economic blockade of Qatar by other GCC countries, the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Director Jihad Azour told CNBC.

Azour told that “any improvement in terms of opening up borders, improving economic relationship will provide an additional potential for growth.”

“Of course, this will improve trade, especially at rates in goods and services,” he added. “It will reduce the cost of procuring for example, for Qatar, it will also help the airlines by reducing the cost. Therefore, there is always benefit from improving economic relationships, especially that we are now entering into a new phase in terms of globalization.” 

In the region more broadly, the improvement in outlook was based on “stronger-than-expected performance among oil exporters, as the absence of the second wave in some countries boosted non-oil activity, and the impact of the first wave was lower than expected,” the IMF wrote in its regional outlook report.