Doha Qatar may raise the base oil price in its 2012-2013 budget for the first time in three years.
The country's finance ministry proposed that the budget be based on an oil price of $65 a barrel, Finance Minister Yousuf Hussain Kamal told reporters at a conference in the country's capital Doha yesterday.
Qatar based its 2011-2012 and 2010-2011 budgets on an oil price of $55 a barrel, the state-run Qatar News Agency reported in March last year, citing the finance ministry.
The budget will be "much bigger" than the previous one and may be announced this month, Kamal said in Doha yesterday.
Inflation will average 2 per cent to 3 per cent this year, he said.
Qatar relied on oil and gas for 58.3 per cent of its nominal gross domestic product in 2011, according to the country's economic planning board.
Crude oil prices have risen 32 per cent in London since May 2010.
Qatar's fiscal-year budget is typically released by early April and remains in effect until the following March.
The finance ministry delayed release of the new budget until as late as June this year because of accounting changes.
Projected surplus
Qatar's 2011-2012 budget, released March 31, 2011, included a projected surplus of 22.3 billion riyals (Dh22 billion) and a 19 per cent increase in spending from the previous fiscal year, Qatar News Agency reported in March last year, without giving the size of the budget.
The 2010-2011 budget set spending at 117.9 billion riyals and included a 10 billion-riyal surplus.
Qatar raised its annual capacity to produce liquefied natural gas to 77 million tonnes last year.
