The year 2008 will forever be remembered for bringing the global financial system to the brink of total collapse. “When I predicted earlier this year that we were facing the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, I did not anticipate that conditions would deteriorate so badly,” said George Soros, the billionaire American financial speculator, aptly capturing the scale of the global financial crisis in the New York Review of Books. Soros went on to warn that, “a deep recession is now inevitable and the possibility of a depression cannot be ruled out.” Thus, globally 2009 will be dominated by the repercussions of the financial crisis. How the global financial crisis will impact the Middle East is still unclear and analysts expect the full implications to slowly emerge over the next year. Already there has been a dramatic drop in the price of oil, real estate in the GCC has been
