The First Al Jisr Research Workshop

February 1-4, 2009
Gulf Research Center

The Gulf Research Center organized the first research workshop. Participants discussed and debated several issues related to the opportunities and challenges of economic diversification in the Gulf region, including economic openness, labour issues, women’s participation, and enabling environment to attract private investments. They also discussed economic integration within the Gulf region, including the economic benefits of free trade and monetary union, and the effects of the current global financial crisis in this process. Other topics included Gulf relations with other regions such as the European Union, Middle East and North Africa and Asia. In the first meeting, a total of 20 sessions were held and 18 draft papers discussed. In addition, potential titles and authors for other papers were considered. This allowed completing the design of the work package and assigning all papers to authors from within the consortium partners or external contributors.