In the worst six months of 2008, oil prices fell by more than 76 percent. That in turn wreaked havoc with the budgets of the petrostates. Saudi Arabia swung from a budget surplus of 23 percent of GDP in 2008 to a substantial deficit.63 Kuwait was rocked by the crisis at Gulf Bank, which faced losses on currency trades.64 But nowhere was worse affected than the boomtown of Dubai.
