Despite economic blockade put by Arab quartet, bilateral trade between Qatar and US increased by 64%

Doha, August 6: The bilateral trade between Qatar and the United States which has witnessed a sharp growth by 64 percent indicates that Doha has moved on from economic blockade put by Arab quartet including Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates accusing it of supporting terrorism and sowing discord in the region.

 

Notably, the combined value of two-way trade exchange in goods during the first six months i.e January-June of the year 2018 jumped to $2.64bn, registering a double-digit growth of about 64 percent compared to $1.61bn recorded in the corresponding period last year.

With the significant surge in trade volume, the US trade surplus with Qatar for the first six months of the current year has also witnessed a steep jump to reach $1.02bn, up by over 54 percent compared to $0.47bn of the trade surplus recorded during the same period of previous year.

While the US exports of goods to Qatar during the January-June 2018 period stood at $1.83b, showing a sharp increase of about 76 percent compared to $1.04bn recorded for the corresponding period last year.

The value of the US imports of goods from Qatar during the first half of this year surged to $810.2m, up by 41 percent from $574.5m for the same period in 2017. The two-way trade exchange for the full year in 2017 stood at $4.32bn with a trade surplus of $1.92bn in favour of the US, one of the leading trade partners of Qatar. The US exports of goods to Qatar in 2017 stood at $3.12bn and its imports from Qatar was $1.19bn.

Bilateral trade volume in goods between Qatar and the US peaked in 2014 to touch $6.91bn with US exports to Qatar at $5.17bn and imports at $1.74bn. The US trade surplus with Qatar in 2014 reached at $3.43bn.

The transportation includes aircraft, advanced technologies of commercial aircraft, vehicles, satellite and communications equipment, technical services in engineering, education and environment technologies. The US is also a leading investor in Qatar’s oil and gas sector helping produce more than two-thirds of the country’s LNG output.

BACKGROUND:

In the month of June last year, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and several other nations cut ties with Qatar and imposed stringent economic sanctions on it over supporting extremism. On the other side, Qatar denied all their allegations saying that they never supported Islamist militants and Shi'ite Iran. Later, Saudi and its allies issued a 13-point list of demands to end the rift on June 22 and gave Qatar 10 days to comply. However, earlier Qatar rejected to fulfill the demands.