The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) indicated that emerging markets (EMs) in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) need to overcome several challenges to achieve sustained high economic growth. The MGI assessed the long-term growth patterns of 71 EMs and classified them into four categories that are the ''long-term outperformers'', ''recent outperformers'', ''middling performers'' and ''underperformers''. It noted that Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan and Morocco came in the ''middling performers'' category, while it classified Lebanon as an ''underperformer'' in terms of long-term growth. In parallel, it indicated that the six MENA economies have negative total factor productivity, limited income and demand growth, as well as the lowest improvement in education spending among all EMs. 

The MGI pointed out that opportunities exist for the six MENA economies to accelerate their pro-growth agenda. It considered that the main priorities for policy-makers are to translate the region's relatively high savings rates into productive investments, as well as to promote innovation and technological adoption. It added that other pressing priorities include improving education in order to increase productivity, and enhancing the quality of public institutions and reducing bureaucracy in order to ensure the successful implementation of policies. Further, it indicated the six MENA countries have the potential to increase consumption and demand, given their favorable demographic trends. Also, it considered that there are opportunities to further diversify the six countries' export portfolio, as well as to improve the value-added of exported goods.
Source: McKinsey Global Institute