{"id":6574,"date":"2018-02-14T10:39:49","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T10:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/?p=6574"},"modified":"2018-02-14T11:39:27","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T11:39:27","slug":"qatar-economy-resilient-continues-to-perform-well-says-seetharaman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/2018\/02\/14\/qatar-economy-resilient-continues-to-perform-well-says-seetharaman\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar economy resilient, continues to perform well, says Seetharaman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Qatar\u2019s economy has proven its resilience and continues to perform well amid the blockade, improving local liquidity and gaining the confidence of international investors, said Doha Bank CEO Dr R Seetharaman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blockade (on Qatar by a quartet of nations) came as a rude shock to us. But Qatar has withstood\u2026 it has proven to be a resilient model. Qatar\u2019s economy was performing around 2.5% last year.<\/p>\n

This year we are not expecting less than 3.1% growth,\u201d Seetharaman told Gulf Times in an interview.<\/p>\n

He said Qatar improved local liquidity by disinvestment last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at Qatar economy, liquidity was under stress to start with. The government improved local liquidity. Now international investors have reposed confidence in Qatar. The banking system as a whole is improving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe loan to deposit ratio in the Qatari banking system has significantly improved and now stands at 112%. This is an improvement of the level, immediately post blockade, which was at 116%.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qatar\u2019s banking sector had witnessed credit expansion of around 9%, the deposit book has grown of more than 10.4%, he noted.<\/p>\n

He said in the days that followed the blockade, there were challenges in terms of international investors slowing down on Qatar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were concerned about the Qatar economic momentum. Even the rating agencies looked sceptical, which explains the negative outlook on the sovereign.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, Seetharaman said, Qatar\u2019s \u2018AA\u2019 rating, which is still very high, has not been challenged although the international rating agencies have changed the sovereign outlook to negative. The high rating (A) of Qatar\u2019s banks is also not challenged.<\/p>\n

Currently, Qatar holds Aa- by Fitch, AA- by S&P and Aa3 by Moody\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith strong exports, positive economic outlook, and natural gas markets unaffected by the economic blockade, the overall growth for Qatar remains sustainable,\u201d Seetharaman noted.<\/p>\n

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest World Economic Outlook revised up its forecast for world economic growth in 2018 and 2019, saying sweeping US tax cuts were likely to boost investment in the world\u2019s largest economy and help its main trading partners.<\/p>\n

Seetharaman also said new global forecast has a 3.9% growth this year and next. The advanced economies are expected to grow by 2.3% in 2018 and 2.2% in 2019.<\/p>\n

The emerging and developing economies are expected to grow by 4.9% in 2018 and 5% in 2019.<\/p>\n

India is projected to grow at 7.4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018 making it the fastest growing economy among emerging economies following last year\u2019s slowdown due to demonetisation and the implementation of goods and services tax.<\/p>\n

China, which is spearheading the \u2018Belt and Road\u2019 concept is expected to grow up to 6.6% this year, he added.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0Gulf Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qatar\u2019s economy has proven its resilience and continues to perform well amid the blockade, improving local liquidity and gaining the confidence of international investors, said Doha Bank CEO Dr R Seetharaman. \u201cThe blockade (on Qatar by a quartet of nations) … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,497,493,5],"tags":[999,316,903,604,305,1002,354,535,934,396,294,321,605,675,313],"class_list":["post-6574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financial-corporate-services","category-cross-border-transactions-mas-joint-ventures","category-economy-business-updates-corporate-affairs","category-india-international-corporate-updates","tag-banking","tag-china","tag-demonetisation","tag-doha","tag-economy","tag-fitch","tag-foreign-institutional-investors","tag-goods-and-services-tax-gst","tag-gross-domestic-product-gdp","tag-international-monetary-fund-imf","tag-investment","tag-moody","tag-qatar","tag-sp-global-ratings","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6574"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6581,"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574\/revisions\/6581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunkrish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}