The latest data from Qatar’s central bank shows that Qatar’s GDP contracted by 0.6% in real terms over the final quarter of 2019, weighed down primarily by slumping activity from “mining and quarrying” – essentially oil and gas.
While the overall economy shrank by 0.2% in 2019, an incremental uptick in Q3 meant that the Emirate avoided the most common technical definition of a recession – two successive quarters of negative growth – by the skin of its teeth (see chart 1). (CONTINUED - 859 WORDS)
