Qatar records $137m budget deficit in Q1, ending 3-year surplus streak

04/06/2025 05:31 AST

Qatar posted its first budget deficit in more than three years - a 500 million Qatari riyal ($137 million) shortfall in the first quarter of 2025, the Ministry of Finance reported.

Ministry figures show the same period last year registered a 2.06-billion-riyal surplus.

This comes as Doha undertakes a cautious fiscal recalibration mid-way through its Third National Development Strategy, relying on conservative oil-price assumptions, program-based budgeting, and a long-anticipated value-added tax rollout to diversify revenue.

In a series of posts on X, the ministry stated: "The State Budget recorded a deficit of QR 0.5 bn in Q1 2025, and the deficit was financed through debt instruments."

It added: "The value of contracts with foreign companies reached QR 1.5 billion in the first quarter of 2025, representing a 50 percent increase compared to the same quarter last year."

The budget figures showed that revenue fell 7.5 percent year on year to 49.4 billion riyals, with hydrocarbons supplying 42.5 billion riyals while non-oil receipts held at 6.9 billion riyals.

Spending slipped 2.8 percent to 49.9 billion riyals, comprising 6.9 billion riyals for salaries and wages, 18.5 billion riyals in other current costs, and a combined 14.3 billion riyals for major and minor capital projects.

Despite the tighter envelope, procurement remained brisk: state entities awarded about 6.4 billion riyals in tenders and auctions, including 1.5 billion riyals to overseas contractors - up 50 percent on the same period last year.

The ministry's Sector Business Index showed the busiest spending concentrations in municipality and environment, health, energy and the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers.

The International Monetary Fund's February 2025 assessment said Qatar's economy was moving past the post-World Cup slowdown.

Real gross domestic product is expected to grow about two percent in 2024-25, then average roughly four-and-three-quarters percent once the planned expansion of liquefied natural gas output and the early reforms of the Third National Development Strategy take effect.

Inflation should fall to 1 percent this year and settle near 2 percent over the medium term, it added.

Lower hydrocarbon prices cut the 2023 current-account and budget surpluses to 17 percent and five-and-a-half percent of national output, with a further easing underway; however, both balances should remain positive as gas export volumes rise.

Banks remain sound, holding capital equal to about one-fifth of risk-weighted assets, while problem loans stay below four percent and are well provisioned.

The IMF urged Doha to introduce a value-added tax, adopt a medium-term budget anchor, sharpen the efficiency of public spending, deepen financial-sector oversight, and accelerate private sector-led diversification to secure long-run resilience.

Arab News