DOHA: Qatar has no plans to issue debt on international markets next year and will adjust as necessary its hitherto fixed offerings of local currency debt, the finance minister said yesterday.
Asked if Qatar planned to issue debt on the international markets next year, H E Ali Sherif Al Emadi said on the sidelines of a financial conference in Doha: “No, nothing.”
“We are going to focus on the local market and it will be used for monetary purposes. It is only for monetary and liquidity management. That’s about it,” he said in his first public comments since his appointment in June.
The Opec member last came to the international market with a $4bn three-tranche sukuk issue in July 2012, which attracted an order book worth more than $25bn.
Its central bank has conducted monthly auctions of 91-, 182- and 273-day T-bills since 2011, consistently draining the same amount of QR4bn ($1.1bn) despite build-ups of excess liquidity as well as a recent fall in demand linked to geopolitical tensions over a civil war in Syria.
In March, the central bank launched debt sales worth a total QR4bn in three- and five-year local currency government bonds and sukuk in quarterly issues allocated directly to banks.
But Emadi said the volumes drained from the market through local debt issues may be changed flexibly in the coming months, echoing April remarks by Central Bank Governor H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Saoud Al Thani. “We are very much dynamic, comparing the models. We always look at the market and if it is required we will be flexible when we need to,” he said.
Qatar may need more active liquidity management in coming years as it plans to spend some $140bn on infrastructure building, partly in preparation for hosting the 2022 World Cup.
Reuters
