Qatar’s economy has proven its resilience once again. The foreign merchandise trade balance of Qatar, which represents the difference between total exports and imports, has showed a surplus of QR14.7bn in April 2018, an increase of about QR 4.9bn or 49.3 percent compared to April 2017, and an increase by nearly QR1.4bn or 10.7 percent compared to March 2018.
According to the preliminary figures of the value of exports of domestic goods, re-exports, and imports for April 2018, released monthly by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, the total exports of goods (including exports of goods of domestic origin and re- exports) amounted to around QR24bn in April, showing an increase of 27.3 percent compared to April 2017.
The trade figures are not the only data that have demonstrated strength of Qatar’s economy as various other figures released earlier have also confirmed strength of economy.
QNB, in April, had revised up Qatar’s overall real GDP to 2.8 percent for 2018, from 2.5 percent previously. The revised 2018 forecast was mainly because of three reasons.
First, QNB had recently raised its forecast for oil prices from $55/b to $63/b, which would lead to higher incomes and spending in the non-hydrocarbon sector.
Second, QNB now expects a sharper rebound in hydrocarbon output as maintenance on LNG production facilities appears to have been dragged out in 2017, but should now be completed.
Third, the economic impact of the blockade has been less than expected and QNB has, therefore, reduced the expected drag from the blockade on 2018 GDP.
QNB noted in its weekly ‘economic commentary’ , Qatar’s GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2017 was held back by the hydrocarbon sector. The latest data showed an unexpected drop of 6.4 percent in hydrocarbon production in Q4 from the previous quarter.
Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde had said, on February 13 this year, that the steady growth in Qatar’s non-oil economy is a reflection of the country’s good diversification policy.
Qatar’s growth in the non-oil sector is pretty much on a par with the non-oil growth in the oil importing countries, the IMF Chief had said in a roundtable discussion on “Strategic Outlook: Qatar in its New Era”, at Qatar University.
Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Tao Zhang , in the second week of April, had praised the economic policies of Qatar and its success in overcoming economic crises affecting the global economy.
