Adequate forex currency stocks benefit visiting football fans

Thousands of World Cup fans to Qatar can easily meet their forex needs as exchange houses across the country have sufficient stocks of all major currencies, sources said Tuesday."Qatar Central Bank has ensured that no visitor from abroad faces difficulty in obtaining forex, especially major currencies such as dollar, pound and euro,” an exchange house official told Gulf Times.Since the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 kicked off, there has been increasing needs for foreign currency, mostly from visiting football fans, noted K N S Das, Trust Exchange general manager."We have been able to meet their needs. We have seen greater demands for Qatari riyal and other major currencies since mid-November,” Das told Gulf Times Tuesday.An industry source said he has not heard of any major issues such as currency shortage since the commencement of the greatest sporting spectacle in Qatar on November 20.Although the purchase and sale of foreign currencies by the exchange houses moderated during 2020 with sales exceeding purchases in view of the pandemic, the situation will have improved in 2021 and this year.The decline in remittances also contributed to the moderation in salesand purchases of foreign currencies that year.But the opening of borders and resumption of air travel meant a huge demand for foreign currency, which is now felt in exchange houses across the country.A resident told Gulf Times that during the summer vacation this year he was not able to get dollar from currency traders at the airport."But that situation has changed now. Foreign currency is now available, which is helping football fans from across the globe,” he said.Qatar is hosting the most compact edition of FIFA World Cup in modern history. All eight stadiums are within one hour’s drive of central Doha, meaning fans and players will always be in the thick of the action.This year’s tournament, which culminates on December 18 – Qatar’s National Day – is the 22nd edition of international football’s showpiece event – and the first to take place in the Middle East.