Qatar

For Qatar’s real estate sector, 2012 is expected to be much the same as the preceding 12 months, with most forecasts projecting a year of steady progress, though there are concerns that oversupply in some segments could keep prices down in the short term as the flow of new developments more than matches current demand.

Undertaking a large-scale expansion of its chemicals industry, Qatar is aiming to increase the value of hydrocarbons-related exports. Production of chemicals and petrochemicals will more than double by 2020, reaching 23m tonnes per year (tpy), up from 9.3m tonnes at present, the nation’s minister of energy and industry, Mohamed bin Saleh Al Sada, announced in mid-January.

The announcement of a major downstream project has been the highlight of a busy period for Qatar’s hydrocarbons sector. An agreement, signed on December 4 between Saleh Al Sada, the minister of energy and industry, and Shell’s CEO, Peter Voser, lays out the commercial principles and scope of a proposed petrochemicals complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City in northeast Qatar.

Having ended 2011 on a high, with its economy growing at break-neck speed, inflation under control and a stepped-up programme of infrastructure investments being rolled out, Qatar is well placed to continue similar growth this year. Yet with the spectre of recession hanging heavy in the air in Europe, and a scaling back of expectations in some major Asian economies, the country may find that in 2012 many of its achievements are consolidated rather than eclipsed.

Qatar’s tourism sector will be one of the big winners of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, with an accelerated building programme of hotels, hospitality facilities and entertainment centres aimed at making sure fans will enjoy their stay, though care has to be taken to ensure that once the World Cup is over, visitors keep coming through the turnstiles.

A series of ongoing development programmes in information and communications technology (ICT) have resulted in rapidly improving technology indicators across the board in Qatar. With guidance from the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology, known as ictQATAR, the government’s industry regulator, the sector is primed to see future growth under a new national broadband network and development strategy.