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Reuters
An offer of 3 billion riyals ($825 million) of Qatar government bonds, the first domestic government bond offer this year, was successful and showed liquidity in the Qatari banking system is healthy, a central bank official told Reuters on Tuesday.
“It was a very successful auction with big demand. It shows liquidity is fine. The demand was fine from both Islamic and conventional banks,†the official said. He did not provide further details of the sale, saying they would be announced later.
A reduction in state revenues due to low natural gas prices cut flows of new petrodollars into Qatar’s banking system this year, pushing money rates up sharply and causing the central bank to cancel several monthly sales of short-term bills. Since June, however, money rates have come off their highs and liquidity has improved somewhat along with a rise in government deposits at commercial banks.