A double-digit expansion in public sector and general trade’s credit off-take helped Qatar’s banking industry register about 10% growth year-on-year to QR881.52bn in May this year, according to the central bank data.
Of the total credits by the commercial lenders, as much as 98% was extended by Qatari banks and only 2% came from foreign banks, according to Qatar Central Bank data.
Credit to Qatar’s public sector saw a stupendous 16.32% jump to QR327.78bn mainly on account of robust expansion of credit to the government sector.
Credit to government witnessed a 40.86% surge to QR171.39bn and government institutions by 2.49% to QR141.33bn; while that to semi-government entities fell 32.24% to QR15.05bn.
Loans to government accounted for 52% of the total public sector credit by banks, followed by government institutions (43%) and semi-government institutions (5%).
Credit to general trade saw a 10.14% growth to QR62.15bn, real estate by 8.19% to QR137.29bn, others by 7.84% to QR9.49bn and consumption by 6% to QR121.51bn.
The services, industry and construction sectors saw their credit off-take grow less than 1% to QR75.72bn, QR13.15bn and QR37.91bn respectively.
Total domestic credit expanded 9.9% to QR784.98bn, which was 89% of the total credit in Qatar’s banking system; while the banks’ overseas credit grew 8.46% to QR96.54bn or 11% of the total.
Of the QR867.81bn credit from Qatari banks, a large chunk of QR625.44bn, or 72%, came from conventional lenders; QR237.33bn, or 27%, came from Islamic banks and QR5.03bn, or 1%, from specialised institutions.
Qatari conventional lenders extended QR266.2bn credit to public sector, QR88.14bn to real estate, QR66.57bn to consumption, QR56.4bn to services, QR38.37bn to general trade, QR23.87bn to contractors, QR7.42bn to industry and QR4.35bn to others.
Domestic Islamic lenders extended QR59.16bn credit to public sector, QR51.25bn to consumption, QR48.15bn to real estate, QR17.92bn to general trade, QR17.2 to services, QR11.37 to contractors, QR5.19bn to industry and QR4.79bn to others.
Of the QR18.74bn credit from foreign banks, Arab lenders’ share stood at QR9.15bn and non-Arab banks at QR9.59bn in May this year.
Foreign banks’ credit to general trade stood at QR5.86bn, consumption QR3.69bn, contractors QR2.66bn, public sector QR2.42bn, services QR2.12bn, real estate QR1.01bn, industry QR0.54bn and others QR0.35bn.
Arab banks’ total credit amounted to QR9.15bn, of which QR2.63bn went towards consumption, QR2.5bn for general trade, QR1.82bn for contractors, QR0.88bn for services, QR0.66bn for real estate, QR0.39bn for public sector, QR0.21bn for industry and QR0.07bn for others.
Of the QR9.59bn total credit by non-Arab banks, QR3.36bn went in for general trade, QR2.02bn for public sector, QR1.24bn for services, QR1.06bn for consumption, QR0.85bn for contractors, QR0.35bn for real estate, QR0.33bn for industry and QR0.28bn for services.