The month of June 2024 saw the fastest non-energy growth in nearly two years in Qatar, thanks to increases in both new and existing business.
Companies’ expansion led to a 16th consecutive month of employment growth, and the nation’s 12-month outlook remained optimistic.
Qatar’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) headline figure increased to 55.9 from 53.6 in May, with anything above 50.0 points indicating growth in business activity.
The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) report stated that although input prices have increased slightly since May 2024, prices for goods and services have decreased, indicating a lack of inflationary pressures.
The headline number indicated the largest improvement in business conditions in the non-energy private sector economy since July 2022 and was above the long-run trend.
According to the report, there was a notable acceleration in the growth of manufacturing and construction, along with notable expansion in other sectors. Incoming new work expanded at the fastest rate in 13 months.
In June, businesses managed to further decrease the amount of outstanding work, even despite the growing demand for goods and services. Positive projections were associated by businesses with marketing campaigns, new branch openings, and new clients.
The cost of goods and services decreased as businesses reported offering discounts to increase their competitiveness and attract new clients, for the sixth time in the previous eight months.
In June 2024, financial services companies in Qatar reported an even stronger increase in both new contracts and overall business activity.
The seasonally adjusted Financial Services Business Activity and New Business Indexes increased to levels above their long-term trend levels since 2017, reaching 13- and 9-month highs of 61.1 and 59.2, respectively.
The CEO of QFC, Yousuf Mohamed Al-Jaida, stated that the June PMI index was higher than all pre-COVID months, except October 2017, when it was 56 points.
“Growth has now accelerated five times in the first half of 2024 as the non-energy economy has rebounded from a moderation in the second half of 2023,” Mohamed Al-Jaida said, as reported by the Zawya.
Talking about Qatar’s economy, the Gulf nation, along with Turkey, saw the fastest growth in individual household wealth in local currency terms in 2023 as global wealth resumed its rising trend following the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation.
Wealth per adult grew in Turkey by 157% in local currency terms, with the low value of the lira playing a role, but it also grew by 63% in dollar terms. Growth in Qatar and Russia was around 20% in local currency terms during the same period, A UBS report showed.
Turkey has seen the fastest growth in average wealth per adult in local currency terms since UBS began publishing the report in 2008, growing 1708% to 2023.
Samuel Adams, economist, UBS Global Wealth Management said at the launch of its annual Global Wealth Report that Qatar, which like other Gulf states has a dollar-pegged currency, saw one of the sharpest falls in household wealth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The last few years, including 2023, have been a story of recovery, both for the economy and household wealth.
“This has meant that the growth rate of wealth in Qatar has been quite strong most recently, outpacing Saudi Arabia, which didn’t experience the same contraction in 2020, but has seen wealth stagnate last year, and similarly, the UAE saw some wealth growth last year but not as strongly as Qatar,” Adams noted, while adding, “The Qatar growth story is of a country returning to its previous trend rather than a sharp divergence with the rest of the region.”