MANAMA: Qatar plans to spend as much as $205bn on infrastructure between 2013 and 2018, the acting head of project finance at Qatar National Bank (QNB) said yesterday, as the country invests its vast hydrocarbon wealth in a development boom.
The Gulf Arab state is spending billions of dollars in areas such as transport, electricity and water generation and housing, in an effort to improve its economy and build towards its hosting of the 2022 soccer World Cup.
Much of the planned infrastructure spending will be financed by the government level. But significant funding still needs to come from both local and international lenders, said Yusuf Saeed, acting head of global structured finance at QNB.
“For large projects, what we’re seeing is you have conventional financing and Islamic financing and options for export credit agencies,” Saeed told an infrastructure finance conference in the capital of neighbouring Bahrain, when he was asked about funding for a pair of petrochemical plants that will cost around $13.5bn.
Reuters
