Operating in one of the world’s fastest growing and wealthiest economies, Qatari banks have been enjoying strong growth for many years on the back of the country’s solid macro-fundamentals. Qatar’s annual real growth of 14.8% between 2007 and 2011 was by far the highest recorded in the world, mainly due to the expansion in production of liquefied natural gas in the country. While growth eased to an estimated 6.1% in 2012, there is no doubting that this pace is still strong by current global standards.
In the past couple of months, two of the major international ratings agencies have given Qatar's banking sector a clean bill of health. In April 2013, Moody’s published a report on Qatari banks that stated: “Our outlook for Qatar’s banking system is stable, unchanged from 2010. The outlook reflects Qatar’s benign economic environment and our expectations that banks will maintain strong financial metrics, primarily robust earnings, sound capitalisation and low levels of non-performing loans (NPLs).” In May 2013, Fitch affirmed its ratings on seven Qatari banks; four were rated A and three A-, all with a stable outlook.
