As the Qatar crisis rumbles into its sixth month, developments at the truncated GCC Summit in Kuwait highlight that whatever the ultimate endgame will be, there’s no going back to the way things were prior to 5 June.

Certainly, Qatar is in no mood to give in to the demands from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and while its economy has undoubtedly taken a hit, it has proven its resilience. Finance Minister Ali Sharif al-Emadi told the Euromoney Qatar Conference in Doha on 5 December that prior to June, Qatar was “outperforming all the GCC economies” and that despite the embargo full year growth will still “probably be one of the highest in the GCC.” (CONTINUED - 1003 WORDS)