A month after the Gulf crisis was defused; Qatar's commercial banks witnessed growth in overseas assets, especially in sukuk in February this year, according to the Qatar Central Bank (QCB).

A jump in the public sector credit and claims on banks led Doha's commercial banks' total assets expand about 9% year-on-year in February 2021, the QCB data suggests.

The robust growth in the domestic and foreign assets led the commercial banks' total assets gain 8.84% year-on-year to QR1.7tn this February, indicating the sector's support to the country's economy in the review period.

The monthly Purchasing Managers' Index of the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) suggests that its February data signals the strongest quarterly expansion since the fourth quarter of 2017. "Recent PMI data suggest that the non-energy economy is now recovering well and will support a rebound in the official GDP numbers," it had said.

The latest report from the QCB suggests that the domestic assets constituted QR1.48tn or 87% of the total; and overseas assets at QR0.23tn or 13% of the total in the review period.

Total domestic assets were seen expanding 9.22% and foreign assets by 6.44% year-on-year in February 2021.

The year-on-year expansion in the total assets of the commercial lenders in the review period has been due to a robust growth trajectory, especially in credit, securities portfolio (notably in debt), cash and precious metals and claims on banks.

The commercial banks' total credit soared 7.58% year-on-year to QR1.16bn with domestic credit expanding 8.1% to QR1.08bn and overseas credit by 0.69% to QR74.65bn in February this year.

The commercial banks' total credit to public sector witnessed 11.49% year-on-year increase to QR395.49n; whereas those to the private sector declined 5.79% to QR746.46bn and to non-banking financial institutions by 0.63% to QR14.23bn.

The total securities portfolio, which is the second largest component of the commercial banks' assets side, witnessed 12.13% year-on-year jump to QR217.85bn in February 2021.

The domestic securities portfolio was seen surging 13.03% to QR199.29bn; while overseas securities portfolio shrank 4.08% to QR18.56bn in the review period.

Of the total QR217.85bn securities portfolio; debt (conventional) was to the extent of QR139.49bn, which grew 21.44% year-on-year; and sukuk of QR73.33bn, which was however down 1.69% year-on-year in the review period.

The domestic debt shot up 25.71% on a yearly basis to QR126.83bn, while the overseas debt shrank 9.38% to QR12.66bn in February 2021.

The government’s total debt fell 2.51% year-on-year to QR98.13bn with domestic debt declining 1.73% to QR90.35bn and foreign debt by 10.77% to QR7.79bn in the review period.

The banks’ total debt declined 12.43% year-on-year to QR7.82bn in February 2021 with their domestic debt witnessing a 17.42% plunge to QR4.41bn and overseas debt by 5.29% to QR3.4bn.

However, debt issued by neither the government nor banks grew more than six-fold to QR33.55bn, mainly from the domestic side, in the review period.

The domestic sukuk was down 2.09 to QR70.36bn, while overseas sukuk grew 8.79% to QR2.97bn in February 2021.

Of the total sukuk, the government’s issuance amounted to QR67.8bn (down 2.68%), while those from the banks stood at QR4.15bn (up 15.28%) during the review period.

The commercial banks’ claim on the central bank increased by 31.34% year-on-year to QR75.68bn in February 2021, of which required reserve amounted to QR40.56bn that expanded about 3% on a yearly basis.

The commercial banks' cash and precious metals were valued at QR22.9bn in February 2021, which surged 64.39% year-on-year.

Their total claims on banks witnessed 17.85% dip year-on-year decrease to QR114.88bn this February.