A robust expansion in loans — especially to services, real estate and general trade — helped Doha’s commercial banks’ domestic credit offtake report about 4% year-on-year growth to QR861.15bn in November 2018, according to the Qatar Central Bank.
Of the QR861.15bn, the private sector received as much as QR531.9bn with bulk of them going towards real estate and consumption, and the remaining QR329.26bn to the public sector.
The services sector credit soared more than 46% to QR118bn, which accounted for about 14% of the total domestic credit during November previous year.
The general trade credit expanded about 14% year-on-year to QR72.73bn, which accounted for more than 8% of the total domestic credit.
The real estate sector credit grew more than 5% year-on-year to QR153.04bn, which contributed about 18% of the domestic credit offtake in November last year; while in the case of contracting, the credit offtake saw more than 8% yearly decline to QR35.87bn, which constituted more than 4% of the domestic loans.
The consumption loans, which accounted for 15% of the total domestic credit, witnessed about 3% growth to QR126.45bn in November 2018.
The credit to the industrial sector witnessed a 2% year-on-year decline to QR16.64bn.
The public sector credit offtake amounted to QR329.26bn, which accounted for more than 38% of the total domestic credit. The public sector credit, however, reported 6% decline year-on-year in the review period.
Of the QR329.86bn credit, as much as QR162.46bn or 49% went towards the government, another QR147.34bn or 45% to government institutions and the remaining QR19.47bn or 6% to semi-government entities.
Qatari banks had extended QR850.75bn credit in November, of which QR621.99bn came from traditional lenders and QR222.54bn from Islamic lenders.
Of the QR850.75bn loans extended by domestic lenders, public sector received QR328.34bn, followed by real estate (QR152.02bn), consumption (QR124.17bn), services (QR118.34bn), general trade (QR66.2bn), contractors (QR33.53bn) and industrials (QR19.36bn).
Qatari traditional and Islamic lenders had extended QR276.4bn and QR51.94bn towards government; QR95.61bn and QR56.41bn to real estate; QR67.21bn and QR56.96bn to consumption sector; QR101.52bn and QR14.12bn towards services; QR44.91bn and QR20.97bn for general trade; and QR10.21bn and QR5.95bn to the industrials sector.
In the case of non-Qatari banks, their total credit stood at QR16.62bn with non-Arab banks pitching in with QR9.69bn and Arab lenders with QR6.93bn.