Qatar ready for possible oil price crash
Posted: 27 February 2006
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Qatar ’s economy will grow to over $60 billion by 2011, predicts Qatar ’s Finance Minister Yousef Hussain Kamal saying no infrastructure-related project will be postponed due to lack of funds.
 In the last five years, the Qatari gross domestic product (GDP) doubled from $17.5 billion to over $35 billion, achieving a per capita income of more than $40,000. For the first time in decades, the government forecast is for a budgeted surplus.
“We will cater for any project that we deem necessary and that will increase the capacity to cope with the rate of growth,” Meed quoted Kamal as saying.
He said Qatar doesn’t take the $60 a barrel price as a basis for pricing. “We are conservative and we recognise the need to channel our expenditure into investment to support the economic growth.
The government has invested abroad, and one of the main channels has been through the oil stabilisation fund, set up in 1999 to invest overseas in the event of any future oil price crash.
“We should be ready for any oil price below $20 a barrel. By 2015, the government should be able to survive largely – and without, if necessary – oil and gas. This is why we are diversifying here in Qatar and abroad.
“The long-term aim is that the private sector will take over many of the services now being provided by the government, allowing it to become a regulator,” Kamal added.
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