Key View:

• Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain’s confirmation of attendance at this year’s Arabian Gulf Cup in Qatar may signal a thaw in the GCC crisis.
• The confirmation comes on the back of several other positive developments, including a conciliatory shift in Saudi officials’ recent rhetoric towards Qatar.
• All eyes will be on the Gulf Cup in

Key View:

• Qatar’s attendance at Saudi Arabia’s Gulf security summit illustrates the GCC’s longstanding trend of pulling together in the face of external threats.
• While this is positive for investor perceptions of political risk in the region, we at Fitch Solutions do not believe it signals a thaw in the wider GCC crisis in and of itself.
• Indee

Key View:

• We at Fitch Solutions have revised down our forecast for Qatar’s current account surplus in 2019, from 7.5% of GDP to 6.4%, though we expect the surplus to widen to 7.7% in 2020.
• The revision is primarily due to moderating oil price gains, which we believe will lead to a slight, temporary contraction in export growth.
• Meanwhile

Key View

• Qatar is moving forward with its large-scale LNG capacity expansion plans, which should bring the country’s gas liquefaction capacity to up to 110.0mtpa by 2025, from 77.1mtpa currently.
• Over the last few months, state-owned Qatar Petroleum has been regularly announcing tenders and awards for major contracts for the North Field

Key View:

• There is little to suggest that the February easing of UAE restrictions on shipping to and from Qatar signals a wider breakthrough in the GCC crisis.
• The UAE’s re-iteration of its commitment to the boycott of Qatar, and Qatar’s lack of an official response imply the two sides remain unwilling to make the concessions needed to drive

Key View:

• We have revised down our medium-term construction industry growth forecast for Qatar as infrastructure projects related to the hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup begin to wind down. We are now expecting growth to average 9.1% y-o-y to 2023, down from 11.9% previously.
• Massive investment in the transport and social sectors has driven