Gulf countries, led by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are widening the wealth gap with the region’s energy importers as political turmoil from Egypt to Lebanon stifles economic growth, HSBC Holdings said.

The economies of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait may expand more than earlier estimated this year, HSBC said in a report published yesterday. By contrast, the London-based bank revised down forecasts for output in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

“While Saudi Arabia adds $1bn a week in savings, Egypt is now counting its remaining wheat stocks,” Dubai-based economists Simon Williams and Liz Martins wrote in the report. “Widening surplus in the Gulf Co-operation Council contrasts with painful deficit outside of it; rising growth contrasts with slowdown and contraction.”

The Gulf Co-operation Council states have poured billions of dollars into their economies to create jobs, the lack of which was the main cause for the unrest that toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

The disparity has led to Egypt’s government to grow more reliant on aid from other regional countries to prevent an economic collapse.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is spending more than $500bn on housing, roads, ports and airports. The oil windfall has also helped the central bank accumulate almost $650bn in foreign assets, according to the most recent official data.

Saudi economic output may expand 4.8% this year, according to an HSBC forecast that was raised from 4.3%. The kingdom may record a budget surplus equivalent to 6.4% of gross domestic product, compared with 7.1% in Qatar and 31% in Kuwait, HSBC estimates.

Qatar’s economy may expand 6.5% this year, HSBC said, revising its estimate from 5.2% in the previous quarterly report.

“Government spending remains the primary stimulus for this growth,” the economists wrote.

Qatar plans to spend $140bn on infrastructure projects by 2019, three years before hosting the soccer World Cup finals, HE the Finance Minister Yousef Hussein Kamal had said last month.

The growth forecast for Kuwait was raised to 4.4% from 3.9%.

Egypt may post a budget deficit of about 11% of GDP, HSBC said, as the economy weakens amid rising opposition to President Mohamed Mursi, delays to loan talks with the International Monetary Fund, and plunging currency reserves. “For post-revolution Egypt, the brief window of opportunity for orderly political transition and economic stabilisation appears to have snapped shut, with substantial further deterioration since our last quarterly,” Williams and Martins wrote.

The economy may grow 1.4% in the fiscal year ending in June, down from an earlier estimate of 2.1%, HSBC said. Egypt’s economy hasn’t expanded that slowly since the early 1990s, and it achieved average growth of 4.9% in the decade before Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow in 2011, according to the IMF.

Egyptians wait in line to purchase government subsidised bread in front of a bakery in Cairo in this file photo dated March 20, 2013. Egypt may post a budget deficit of about 11% of GDP, HSBC said, as the economy weakens amid rising opposition to President Mohamed Mursi, delays to loan talks with the International Monetary Fund, and plunging currency reserves.

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