Qatar Set To Clock Fastest Growth Rate Next Year Since 2015: Emirates NBD

Qatar’s broad economy is in good shape, with “positive” annual growth across all components of GDP in the first quarter (Q1), according to Emirates NBD.

Indications are that growth has been maintained in the second quarter, with the Qatar Financial Centre PMI survey remaining above the neutral 50.0 level in April and May, the Dubai-based banking group has said in a report.

While Qatar saw a record first quarter in terms of LNG exports, hitting 22mn tonnes amid high demand from northeast Asia, there was only a modest 1.5% y-o-y rise in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas industrial production index.

The second quarter also appears to have got off to a fairly weak start, with the index’s April print down 3.8% year-on-year (y-o-y).

“We have pencilled in a 2.0% expansion in the hydrocarbons side of the economy this year. In 2026, however, we project a much more robust 8.0% growth rate given the expected start of operations at the North Field East expansion project in the middle of next year.

“This will drive headline GDP growth up to 4.8% next year according to our projections, which if realised would be the fastest growth rate since 2015,” Emirates NBD said.

The researcher’s non-hydrocarbons growth forecast for Qatar this year is 3.0%, which would represent a modest slowdown from the 3.4% seen last year.

Although the Q1 growth print does offer some upside risk to this projection there has been a slowdown in quarterly growth, which if maintained would see softer annual growth through the remainder of the year.

Qatar’s real GDP growth rate slowed to 3.7% y-o-y in Q1, down from 6.1% in Q4-2024. This still marked a strong performance, however, coming in well above the 2.5% averaged over the previous four years.

On a quarterly basis, growth was 0.3%, from 0.4% in Q4. The slowdown in annual growth was driven primarily by a drop in ‘mining and quarrying’, mainly from the hydrocarbons sector, where growth fell to 1.0% y-o-y, from 6.3% the previous quarter.

There was also a more modest slowdown in non-hydrocarbon GDP, which maintained a robust growth rate of 5.3%, compared with 6.2% previously.

“We forecast headline GDP growth of 2.6% this year, compared with 2.4% in 2024,” Emirates NBD said.

Notable growth drivers in Q1 include wholesale and retail trade, which expanded 14.6% y-o-y and accounted for 8.4% of GDP, and manufacturing, which made up 7.4% of the total and grew 5.6% y-o-y, compared with a 0.2% decline in Q4-2024.

Building and construction saw growth of 4.4% and the outlook for the rest of the year is positive given high levels of project spending in the pipeline.

As of June, MEED Projects data gives $52.8bn worth of projects budgeted in Qatar. The bulk of this is in construction, closely followed by transport with investment going into the New Doha International Airport and the Doha Metro network.

Transport and storage saw growth of 4.1%, maintaining the healthy pace set over the previous three years.

While visitor arrivals in Q1 were down 7% to 1.5mn, the ongoing expansion of Qatar Airways and the development of Doha International as a regional and global hub likely provided support to the sector – in 2024 passenger volumes through Hamad International Airport expanded by 15% to reach 52.7mn passengers, Emirates NBD said.