DOHA: Qatar continues to remain one of the few economies in the world registering a remarkable positive current account balance of about 31 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2013, according to an official publication.
According to “Window on Economic Statistics of Qatar”, the eighth issue of the quarterly publication released by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS), current account balance in 2013 stood 30.9 percent of GDP.
Qatar’s inflation rate of 3.1 percent (Consumer Price Index) in 2013 was slightly lower than that of the world average (3.8 percent), which was much lower than the 10.5 percent posted in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, and the 5.8 percent registered in the ‘Emerging markets and developing economies’.
The reference quarter of this issue is the first quarter of 2014 (Q1 2014). The main objective of this report is to collate in one document all the latest key macroeconomic indicators.
The indicators covered in the issue include National Accounts and Prices; Public Finance; Balance of Payments; and Selected Financial Indicators.
The report also contains a ‘Dashboard’ that compares the economic performance of Qatar with other economies and regions in terms of three indicators namely real GDP growth rate, inflation rate as measured by the CPI and Current Account Balance as percentage of GDP.
The economic performance of Qatar in terms of the above three important indicators reflect that Qatar’s macroeconomic fundamentals are much better than other countries and regions.
It is worth mentioning that Qatar’s real GDP growth rate of 6.5 percent is among the highest performing economies in 2013, similar to that of Developing Asia which also grew at 6.5 percent, while the estimate for the ‘World’ average works out to 3 percent, and that for Advanced Economies is 1.3 percent.
The second part of the report presents an analysis of the latest economic statistics published by the Ministry relating to Quarterly GDP, CPI, Producer Price Index (PPI), Exports and Imports and compares the performance in the first quarter of 2014 with that of the corresponding quarter of 2013 and, with that of the previous quarter.
While part third contains articles on selected themes. The title of the article included in this issue is: “Differences between the 2008 System of National Accounts and the 1993 System of National Accounts”.
The Peninsula
