The Middle East and North Africa’s oil exporting countries will see economic growth accelerate in 2012 to 6.6%, mainly due to a strong rebound of activity in Libya, the IMF said. The forecast marked a rare upgrade in the IMF semi-annual World Economic Outlook report after it downgraded its expectations for global growth. The IMF  had forecast growth of 4.8% across the oil producing economies of the Middle East and Africa in its previous semi-annual review in April. Growth in 2011 was 3.9% . However,  it forecast that 2012 GDP  in Iran, suffering from international sanctions, would fall 0.9% to produce the country’s first economic contraction since 1994. In April, it had forecast growth of 0.4% , “in most…oil exporters, non-oil GDP growth is expected to remain robust in 2012, supported by ratcheted-up government spending as oil prices remain at historically high levels, while oil-sector growth is forecast to moderate somewhat after a strong increase in 2011,” the IMF said. It attributed the pick-up in its expectations for the oil exporting grouping largely to increased economic activity in Libya since 2011 (Reuters).