Dubai: Qatar's revised rent law forbids landlords from raising rents for the next two years, the local Peninsula newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Agriculture.

The Gulf state passed the law on Friday, newspapers reported last week.

The law "does not permit landlords to increase rentals for a period of two years," Shaikh Abdul Rahman Bin Khalifa Al Thani said, according to the Peninsula.

The ministry will study how much of a rent increase it will allow after the two years, the paper said.

A 27.7 per cent surge in rents spurred inflation in the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas to 13.74 per cent in December, the second-fastest pace on record.

Qatar, which is adopting price controls to curb price rises, could lower the cap on rent increases that landlords can charge by three percentage points to 7 per cent, the Peninsula reported last week.