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Impact of the Gulf crisis
on the
global oil supoly situation and on
inflation and economic growth in Hong Kong
Background
Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait and
consequential
have raised grave worries
about their impact on the global oil supply
developments in the Gulf area
worldwide
situation and the trend of oil prices, and thus the likely
knock-on
effects on inflation
Kong is not immune to this
assessment of the
external shock.
and economic growth. Hong
A brief
implications for the Hong Kong economy,
based on information readily at hand, is given below.
Oil supply situation
2.
Although the relative importance of oil producers
n
in OPEC or in the Gulf area has declined in recent years
due to increased production from a number of other
significant oil producers, in 1989 oil producers in the
Middle East still accounted for 26% of the global supply of
crude oil. Within this share, 7.4% of the world total came
from Iraq and Kuwait combined, and 8.7% came from Saudi
Arabia (Table 1).
The pattern of production by suppliers
is,
however, not static. Towards the end of July 1990, oil
industry sources estimated that the pattern just before the
crisis was probably as follow: