Energy and power projects totaling $622b in MENA and Iran could materialize between now and 2021 depending on oil prices, creditworthiness of countries and geopolitics, The National informed.

Zawya reported that, fully committed projects worth as much as $337b are already ongoing, which results in around $1t of investments in the region when combined with the schemes projected for the near future, according to the latest edition of the MENA Energy Investments Outlook published by the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP).

While global investments in the industry continued their decline in 2016, down by 24% as compared to 2015, the MENA region is expected to see an increase of 7% in energy investment activity compared to data of 2016.

However, APICORP’s Analyst, Mustafa Ansari, highlighted that “many of the net energy exporting countries in the region will continue to experience sort of constrained budgets and will have to tighten their government spending, and this causes challenges for the region.”