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FROM FRONTIER TO EMERGING MARKET: QATAR’S LONG-TERM GROWTH PLAN
34
COUNTRY REPORT
Photograph © Robert Adrian
Hillman / Dreamstime.com,
supplied April 2011.
A vision of the perfect future
Expected to remain one of the most stable of the Gulf
Cooperation Council countries in an otherwise turbulent 2011
for many MENA economies, the most pressing concern for the
Emirate of Qatar is the speed with which infrastructure
development takes place; both physical and financial, and the
movement from a classification of being a frontier market to an
emerging market is finalised. Francesca Carnevale reviews the
latest development plan.
THE BLUEPRINT FOR Qatar’s
journey into the third decade of
this century is clearly signposted
by a hefty 280 page document published
in March this year entitled Qatar
National Development Strategy 2011-
2016: Towards Qatar National Vision 2030.
“Qatar’s tremendous progress is clear
in all fields,” writes Tamin Bin Hamad
Al-Thani, heir apparent and head of the
Supreme Oversight Committee for
implementing the Qatar National Vision
2030 (QNV2030), in the introduction.
He continues: “However the stresses
that accompany rapid progress are also
visible. Our mission—balanced and sustainable
growth—requires responsible
use of resources and continuous modernisation
and development of public
institutions to ensure good programme
management and high-quality public
services.”
What is surprising is the depth and
breadth of the paper, encompassing
issues as diverse as healthcare, family
cohesion, crime management, sports,
cultural management as well as ubiquitous
topics such as institutional
development, strategic policy and planning.
“The breadth of the coverage is a
comforting sign,” says a banker in
Doha, “it makes me think that there is
a good chance that the vision will be
implemented in its entirety.”
The scope of the project has largely
taken the country’s financial community
by surprise. Not because of the investment
required; Qatar has traditionally
thought on a long term and rather
grandiose scale. Instead any admiration
of the aspirations of the country’s leadership
is that its commitment to change
is largely unbidden. Because of the
country’s immense wealth, there is
hardly any expectation of or demand for
political or social liberalisation in what
increasingly appears to be (excepting
Saudi Arabia) the most conservative of
the GCC emirates. Any movement
towards liberalisation of any order would
have had to come entirely from the government.
Moreover, Qatari society is still
largely organised along tribal lines and is
not particularly politically engaged.
Rapid growth in the first decade of
the century has given Qatar one of the
world’s highest levels of per capita
income. High savings rates, both public
and private, is reflected in both public
and private sector investment projects
and the accumulation of high levels of
foreign currency assets.
In the early 1990s, Qatar developed a
multi-directional and fast-track strategy
to accelerate the commercialisation
of its substantial natural gas reserves,
making large-scale investments across
M AY 2 0 1 1 • F T S E G L O B A L M A R K E T S