Qatar National Bank

On June 14th, the US Federal Reserve (Fed) increased its policy rate for the second time this year as was widely anticipated. Less certain, however, was the path of future policy tightening in light...

The global oil market is expected to shift from being oversupplied in 2016 to being under supplied in 2017. As we highlighted in a recent report (Oil after OPEC — range-bound at USD55-60), in...

On May 24th, the rating agency Moody’s downgraded China’s credit rating for the first time since 1989 on concerns over risingdebt andslowing economic growth. Despite the downgrade, China...

OPEC, along with a number of other non-OPEC major producers, recently extended their 1.8m barrels per day (b/d) output cut agreement from end-June 2017 until March 2018. We examine the reasons and...

Global trade growth has been deteriorating steadily since the financial crisis in 2008 and fell to a new low in 2016. However, recent data suggest that the persistent downward trend in global trade...

Despite the halving of oil prices from their 2014 highs, Qatar’s economy continued to grow robustly in 2016, particularly in the non-hydrocarbon sector where key infrastructure projects...

The victory of Emmanuel Macron in the French elections last week allowed Euro Area policymakers and investorsto breathe a collective sigh of relief. Macron’s triumph over euro sceptic candidate...

In early April, Qatar lifted a moratorium on the development of the North Field, the world’s largest non-associated gas reservoir. The moratorium had been in place since 2005 and its removal...

Oil prices in 2017 have been determined by two main counterbalancing forces—supply cuts led by OPEC and rising shale oil production in the US. The production cuts agreed in November 2016 between...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised up its forecast for global growth for the first time for five years when it released its World Economic Outlook last week. The IMF now expects global...

2016 was an eventful year. China kicked off the year with a devaluation of the yuan, then British and American voters defied expectations, OPEC agreed to its first supply cut in eight years and India...

Qatar’s Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS) released GDP data for Q4 2016 last week. Real GDP growth was 1.7% in Q4 and 2.2% for 2016 as a whole, moderating from annual growth...

The election of President Trump and the prospect of fiscal stimulus spurred considerable optimism about US growth in 2017. US equity markets jumped in the weeks following the US election, in what...

Emerging markets (EMs) have been surprisingly calm during the recent rise in US interest rates. Compared with past episodes, which were characterised by capital flight, collapsing currencies and...

The European Central Bank (ECB) kept policy unchanged at its latest monetary policy meeting on March 9th but ECB President Mario Draghi struck a decidedly optimistic tone about the progress of the...

China’s Premier, Li Keqiang, tabled the government’s annual “work report” to the National People’s Congress last week and outlined a range of new economic targets for...