“All the companies operating in Qatar are registered with our Ministry, so any one of them winding up its operations due to the world economic turbulence will be immediately reported to us. There are no such reports,” H E Sheikh Fahad bin Jassem Al Thani said.
He was addressing a seminar organised by the Qatari Businesswomen’s Association here on Tuesday. The Minister also said that reports that some firms were laying off their staff to cut costs was not true either.
“Qatar is among the least affected countries. The global recession hardly has any major impact on our economy, which is in a very good shape. This has also been confirmed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in one of its reports released recently,” said the Minister.
According to him, the Qatari economy remains one of the fastest growing in the entire region. One reflection of the national economy continuing to be as robust as ever is that the budgetary estimates for the next fiscal year will allocate more funds for public spending on infrastructure development.
The budget for the financial year 2009-10 is set to be the largest unveiled so far by the State and funds allocated for development projects are going to be massive. Mega projects are set to be announced in the budget.
Replying to questions from reporters, Sheikh Fahad said that banks here had not put restrictions on lending. They continue to lend as liberally as they did before and if some of them are insisting that potential borrowers do more paperwork to cover risks, that does not suggest they are restricting lending.
