Santhosh V. Perumal

Qatar's realty sector seems to be going in full steam despite the Gulf crisis as robust expansion in loans to this sector mainly led the country's commercial banks register a healthy double-digit growth year-on-year (y-o-y) in domestic credit off-take this August.

The total domestic credit by commercial banks grew more than 14% to QR805.17bn in August this year, according to the latest figures released by the Qatar Central Bank.
The credit to the real estate sector witnessed more than 10% growth to QR187.01bn, which accounted for 23% of total credit in August 2017. It was the third largest recipient of loans in absolute terms.
Defying the expectations of the siege countries, Qatar's construction sector seems to display resiliency with sources viewing that the country's swift actions to diversify the trade partners helped ease uncertainties, which by itself was a supporting factor for the lenders.
Loans to government were the second largest component or 21% of the banks' credit portfolio. It reported the fastest annual growth of more than 72% to QR172.31bn.
The credit to services sector, the second largest group with a share of 22% in the total credit, was up more than 2% to Q170.64bn.
The growth in credit to the services has been due to that in general services, whose off-take expanded 9% to QR153.94bn; while that to financial services shrank 29% to QR20.88mn.
The personal loans segment witnessed more than 7% increase in credit off-take to QR123.04bn, which accounted for 15% of total domestic loans in August this year.
The credit to contracting sector grew about 5% y-o-y to QR41.19bn, which constituted 5% of the total credit.
Loans to other non-specified sectors amounted to QR10.7bn, representing a steady 24% expansion on a yearly basis. The credit off-take was mere 1% of the total in August this year.
However, the credit to the industrials witnessed about 24% decline to Q24.96bn, which accounted for 3% of total domestic loans in August 2017. The fall in credit has been due to lower credit off-take by hydrocarbons and industrial manufacturing.
The credit to oil sector has fallen about 7% to QR2.42bn and that to the industrial manufacturing by more than 55% to QR8.99bn.
Nevertheless, loans to heavy industry more than doubled to QR5.89bn and those to natural gas rose more than 1% to QR7.66bn.