S&P Global Ratings affirmed this week its 'AA-/A-1+' long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign ratings on Qatar. The outlook is negative. The ratings were removed from CreditWatch with negative implications.
“The negative outlook reflects our view of the potential consequences of the boycott on Qatar's economic, fiscal, and external metrics, especially if the boycott is tightened or prolonged. We could lower our ratings on Qatar if the boycott reduces economic wealth levels to an extent that we no longer assess GDP per capita as a sufficient cushion to offset.”
- Moody's Changes Qatar's Rating Outlook From Stable To Negative
- Debt Concerns Push S&P's Qatar Rating To Negative
The S&P report said: “We could lower the ratings if policy predictability in Qatar were to become more uncertain. In order to support its economy and banking system, the Qatari government is liquidating and utilizing part of its fiscal assets. If our estimate of the government's liquid assets were to fall substantially, we could also lower the ratings.
We could raise the ratings if we saw domestic institutions mature faster than we expected, alongside significant improvements in transparency regarding government assets and external data quality,” it added.
S&P expect government policy to remain supportive of economic growth and fiscal metrics to remain strong.
“We expect that economic growth will slow but the government's infrastructure plan will continue to support economic activity. We expect the authorities to continue with key macroeconomic policies of fiscal consolidation and the economic-growth-enhancing $200 billion infrastructure development plan for 2014-2020.”
