Qatar is facing an anticipated recession that would possibly beat the national economy during the coming period. The government's efforts to address the potential recession through interim solutions remain ineffective on the medium and long term.
The private sector senses the symptoms of the paralysis in some influential economic activities due to some new projects shutting down.
Reliable sources revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the Qatari government stopped subsidies of imported goods to cover the domestic markets’ need from exporters in Turkey and Iran, noting that the government used to bear around 40 percent of the importing cost from Turkey and Iran.
However, this support exhausted the government during the past period for some reasons, such as Turkish and Iranian firms exploiting the Qatari need for importing food and construction products.
Among the indicators of recession are the challenges the real estate market is facing. These challenges are represented by the vacancy of residential and commercial units as well as the drop in prices.
Sources revealed that among the adopted solutions by the Qatari government was to stop the allowances, which has led to decreased salaries and therefore has affected the purchasing power and retails sector movement.
Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said two years ago Qatar planned to boost several sectors to support the national economy, yet this requires decades and years to reach self-sufficiency.
In this regard, economist Sulaiman al-Assaf said that the Qatari economy was suffering in some sectors in which the importing cost is high. Assaf added that the continuous Arab boycott would cost Qatar high, and inflation was likely to scale due to the current conditions.
