The Governor of Qatar Central Bank, Abdulla bin Saoud Al-Thani, confirmed that “the measures taken to confront the Corona pandemic have not affected the financing policies of the banking sector,” pointing out to “the ability of Qatari banks to maintain the strength of their financial position, despite the global epidemic.”
The governor of the Central Bank revealed that the local credit exceeded one trillion riyals (about $274.7 billion) at the end of 2020, indicating that "the reasons that led to the decline in bank profits during 2020 to about 8.1 percent are due to banks' hedging and additional allocations against expected credit losses, which has become a requirement for Qatari banks with the application of the International Accounting Standard and the corresponding standard for Islamic banks since 2018, and standing for the irregular debts and allocations for the declining of investments’ value as a result of the unfavorable developments in 2020.
He also stressed that "the Qatari Central Bank is ready to support small and medium-sized companies to achieve self-sufficiency, stating the keenness of the bank to contribute to raising the level of self-sufficiency in all sectors and to provide comfortable liquidity while directing interest rates to the required level."
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
