Qatar Sees Future Economic Growth At 5%

Qatar, which is expected to post a real GDP growth rate of 6.3 per cent in 2012, will see its economy slowing further in the near future.

“We expect in coming years that growth rates will be around five per cent,” Qatar’s finance minister Youssef Kamal said at a conference in Doha, reported Reuters.

Growth in the Gulf state, which saw real GDP rise 14.1 per cent in 2011, has been driven by the gas and hydrocarbon sector.

However, in a recent report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said that it expects Qatar’s oil and gas sector to shrink to 5.7 per cent in 2012 and post zero growth from 2013.

The IMF’s projections for Qatar’s GDP growth stood at 4.9 per cent for 2013. A recent report by Qatar’s General Secretariat for Development Planning (GSDP) also estimated real GDP growth of 4.5 per cent for 2013.

“Between 2012 and 2019, Qatar has planned infrastructure investments in the region of $130 billion. In the near term—2012 and 2013—it may well spend some 10 per cent of its GDP on infrastructure and total project disbursements, or about $39 billion,” GSDP said.

Qatar is spending massively on infrastructure in the run-up to hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022.