Qatar M2 falls 5.7% in April, first in three years

Dubai: Qatar's M2 money supply declined 5.7 per cent in April compared with a year earlier, while total domestic credit of commercial banks rose 1 per cent from March to 209.87 billion riyals (Dh211.6 billion), the central bank said.

M2 stood at 176.89 billion riyals at the end of March, compared with 187.65 billion riyals a year earlier, the data in a monthly bulletin showed.

Total domestic credit of commercial banks rose from 207.89 billion riyals in March, the data showed.

After more than doubling between 2007 and 2008 during a regional economic boom, total domestic credit in Qatar fell in the first two months of the year as the global economic turmoil made an abundance of credit a thing of the past.

The decline in annual money supply is the first fall in at least three years, according to Reuters data.

By comparison, annual money supply had surged at least 45 per cent in each of the first seven months of 2008 as investors piled into riyals on unfulfilled expectations that the Gulf state would revalue its currency.

M1 money supply, which is M2 without quasi money, was down nearly 12 per cent year-on-year in April, the data showed.

"The decline in M1 is consistent with both data showing consumer price weakness and our strong sense that domestic demand had fallen away," said HSBC economist Simon Williams.

Total credit to the private sector fell 0.8 per cent in April from March, again the first decline in at least three years, according to Reuters data.

Commercial banks' lending to the public sector rose 8.93 per cent, the data showed.

The central bank's net international reserves stood at 47.3 billion riyals at the end of April, a 15.5 per cent increase compared with the previous month.

Gulf economies - heavily reliant on oil and gas revenues - had surged as oil prices rallied to peaks of almost $150 a barrel last July.

They slowed down as the price of crude slumped to close to $30 a barrel earlier this year. Qatar is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.