Hydrocarbon production to augment Qatar’s economy in 2024

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Doha: Qatar’s hydrocarbon production is expected to grow by 1.4 percent this year states analysts at Fitch Solutions. As a result, the year will witness a significant milestone for the economy with rising oil and gas projects providing an additional tailwind to headline growth in 2024.

The experts at the oil and gas team noted that there will be a surge in hydrocarbon exports in the country. However, higher hydrocarbon exports are expected to drive the momentum in the region as the researchers outline that the growth will be above with 2015 to 2019 average.

The report underlines that several new projects implemented in Qatar are poised to drive growth in the construction sector. It also said that easing inflation and looser monetary policy during the second half of 2024 will support household consumption.

The experts predict that inflation will ease on average from 2.9 percent in 2023 to 1.8 percent in 2024, improving household’s purchasing power. On the other hand, lower interest rates will support credit-base consumption.

Fitch said: “While the authorities have been prioritising the creation of white collor jobs to improve the structure of the expatriate population, the new infrastructure investment, which will require blue-collar workers, will prevent significant progress on this front. We thus think that private consumption growth will remain constrained by the country’s large share of expats, who are more likely to remit their income to their home country than spend it domestically. This is why Qatar has the lowest share of private consumption to GDP among GCC peers.”

In its recently given data, the report highlights that that real GDP growth anticipates a rebound on stronger investment and private and public consumption. It also mentions that lower inflation and costs of borrowing will support private consumption and newly announced projects, and lower costs of borrowing and higher gas prices will boost private and public investment.

It further adds that government consumption will benefit from higher gas revenues but a slower growth in tourist arrivals will offset higher hydrocarbon production.