The spontaneous rise of the international oil prices in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq has brought in huge export proceeds of the Middle East oil producers. It has, in the meantime, claimed substantial resources via the imposition of growing import bills on the oil consumers, aggravating international payment imbalance, inasmuch as triggering increasing income inequality and a chain of radical restructuring of global market relations. The outcome of the ongoing process is still to realize. But broad-based reactions throughout the world are gathering momentum already, including ostensibly the quest for oil money from both the governments and business communities within the region and beyond.
The present research project is motivated on similar grounds insofar as Taiwan have been negatively affected due to the quadrupling oil prices since around 2002. As geographical coverage, eight ME countries are selected, namely Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Libya, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE)(hereafter ME8). They are targeted as the main sources of oil fortune to which this study is dedicated.
Analytically, the text that follows contains two parts. Part one exposes systemically the current status of the eight sample countries in three main fields: the macroeconomic, industrial, as well as financial and monetary development. Conceived as country survey, this exposure is intended to lay the basis for subsequent and Part two monitoring of the flow patterns of the oil money and investigation into the policy means for ad hoc diversions, Several channels are recommended in this undertaking: namely, by encouraging the inflow of direct investment from ME8, export promotion to, as well as assisting home businesses going international beginning with the construction engineering works in, the target markets. Success or failure, it is evident that the outcome of this endeavor depends not merely upon the home-based policy objectives but also upon the mechanis