GCC economies will face sharp contractions in 2009, but a recovery is possible in 2010. Despite the Opec decision to slash production and growing confidence that the oil price crash is over and may even be partly reversed this year, the Middle East’s largest economies will suffer a substantial setback in 2009. According to analysis in A Short, Sharp Shock, a new report by MEED Insight about the economic outlook for the GCC, the dollar value of the GCC’s gross domestic product (GDP) at current prices will probably contract by about 20 per cent in 2009.