Qatar’s trade deficit is projected to hit $1.2 billion in March, its first in more than a decade, according to Dubai-based bank Emirates NBD.
While the country’s National Planning Council has yet to release official figures for March, Emirates NBD has the metric swinging from a 12 billion riyal ($3.3 billion) surplus in February to a shortfall of 4.4 billion riyals in March, as the Iran war halted the gas-rich country’s energy exports.
Qatar’s trade balance had been edging down in recent years as a result of lower energy prices, but that trend was due to be turned around by the coming expansion of its liquefied natural gas output. Those plans are now delayed and repairing the war damage to existing LNG plants at Ras Laffan could take as long as five years. Doha does at least have substantial financial resources to cushion the blow: It began the year with 261 billion riyals in reserves at the central bank and its sovereign wealth fund has assets worth $600 billion.