A strong double-digit year-on-year growth in loans to the services and trading sectors led Qatar's commercial banks report more than 9% growth in total domestic credit in December 2020, according to the central bank data.
The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) data showed that total domestic credit grew to QR1.05tn at the end of December 31, 2020.
The strong credit pickup is an indicator of the resilience in the private sector, for which the government had extended the QR75bn stimulus package that included a zero-coupon QR50bn repo facility.
The commercial banks’ credit to the services sector saw a 17.13% yearly expansion to QR330.01bn, which constituted more than 31% of the total domestic loans in December last year.
Credit to the general services witnessed a 14.44% year-on-year jump to QR292.75bn, which was about 89% of the total credit to the services sector.
Within the general services, credit to air transport was QR94.39bn, realty QR79.35bn, hotels QR27.43bn, non-specified QR21.31bn, engineering QR17.89bn, land transport QR16.87bn and petroleum QR7.85bn in December 2020.
For financial services, it registered an impressive 43.64% year-on-year surge to QR37.26bn at the end of December last year with a large share of it directed towards investment companies (QR24.42bn), investment funds (QR6.63bn), non-specified (QR4.39bn) and insurance (QR1.5bn).
The banks' credit to the trading sector witnessed an 11.26% year-on-year expansion to QR159.38bn, or more than 15% of the total domestic loans in December 2020.
Within the trading sector, as much as QR57.48bn went to the commercial agencies, QR35.88bn to non-specified, QR9.82bn to automobiles and spare parts, QR8.8bn to food products, QR8.15bn to chemicals and allied products, QR8.07bn to machinery and equipment, QR7.31bn to petroleum products, QR3.79bn to building materials and gypsum products, QR3.21bn to clothing and leather, QR3.05bn to petroleum refinery and QR2.95bn to agriculture and allied products.
Credit to the real estate was up 5.69% year-on-year to QR205.72bn, which was about 20% of the total domestic credit in December 2020. As much as QR79.52bn went to the developers, QR57.6bn for commercial housing and QR26.17bn for the private housing.
The consumption credit increased 7.11% year-on-year to QR146.99bn, constituting about 14% of the total domestic credit in November 2020.
Consumption credit to nationals amounted to QR135.31bn, of which as much as QR73.84bn was unspecified, QR60.08bn as personal loans, while auto loans were to the tune of QR1.38bn.
Consumption credit to non-Qataris stood at QR11.69bn with personal loans constituting QR8.59bn, unspecified QR2.87bn and auto loans of QR0.24bn.
Credit to the industrials sector, however, witnessed a 2.16% year-on-year decline to QR25.38bn, which was more than 2% of the total domestic credit in the period in review.
Within the sector, credit to the natural gas segment amounted to QR8.87bn, heavy industry QR8.33bn, industrial manufacturing QR5.35bn and oil QR2.84bn in the review period.
The contracting sector witnessed a 5.36% year-on-year jump in credit to QR37.77bn, or about 4% of the total domestic loans. A total of QR20.13bn went for the buildings, QR10.78bn for the non-specified segment, QR2.37bn for maintenance, QR2.06bn for building and QR2.03bn for roads.
Credit to the government registered a 2.25% annual growth to QR136.8bn, which was 13% of the total domestic credit in December last year.
 
 
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