Qatar Economic Outlook Issue Number 13

Qatar Economic Outlook 2021 - 2023 
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of bonds and mortgage-backed securities.
That equals 37.5% of the total QE of $120 
billion, which probably will reduce the full 
amount by early 2022.
It was also mentioned in various reports and 
the Minutes that a number of developed 
countries have begun to tighten their policy, 
e.g., Norway raised the interest rate to 0.25% 
at the beginning of November 2021, and New 
Zealand raised it to 0.7% at the end of 
November 2021. Conversely, the Bank of 
England's
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MPC kept interest rates 
unchanged at 0.1% at its meeting in early 
November 2021, it also kept the total size of 
its QE-related bond-buying program
unchanged at £895 billion. The Reserve 
Bank of Australia also decided that 
quantitative easing will continue until mid-
February 2022 and that the interest rate will 
be raised only in April 2022 from its current 
level of 0.1%. 
As for the European Central Bank, it has 
indicated up to early december 2021 that it is 
unlikely to raise interest rates next year, as 
the inflation rate is low, and this means that 
the interest rate on major refinancing 
operations, interest rates on the marginal 
lending facility, and deposit facilities are 
unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25%, and -0.50%, 
respectively. 
Inflation and the Disruption of 
Supply Chains 
It is certain that the disruptions in supply 
chains through sea freight were one of the 
most important factors that led to a decrease 
in the supply of goods and services at the 
right time and place, as the activities of 
shipping and unloading witnessed a 
stagnation at the beginning of the Covid-19 
crisis (March - April 202). and then was 
perturbed by the shortage of empty shipping 
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https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-
policy/quantitative-easing
containers in the places where they were 
required, Although globally containers are 
plentiful and available, they are often 
marooned in ports far away from where they 
are needed, which has precipitated an 
increase in sea freight costs, as the well-
known Baltic Exchange Dry Index (BEDI) 
suggests in Figure (1-7). Freighting has 
increased by 144.6% during the past 12 
months, with a maximum of 506%..
While there has been a continuous recovery 
in the shipping industry during the months 
(October-November 2021) which helps in 
reducing the shipping cost according to the 
daily and monthly BEDI as shown in Figure 
(1-8), a number of disruptions are still going 
on until the end of the year 2021 which will 
continue to affect commodity prices, 
including as an example, the shortage of 
truck drivers in the road transport industry 
and the repercussions of social distancing 
measures in workplaces, there has been an 
increase in prices of production inputs, 
including the costs of processing, packaging, 
and marketing of food and non-food items, as 
well as the costs of distribution and internal 
transport.