Qatar started to ‘run out’ of US dollars

The shortage of USD is causing money exchange counters in Qatar to struggle.

`We no longer have USD, because of supply interruption from the UAE (United Arab Emirates),` said an employee at the Qatar-UAE Exchange House foreign exchange service firm in City Center shopping center (Doha).

Many other money exchange counters in Doha also said they no longer had a supply of USD.

Many money exchange locations in Qatar are running out of USD.

`I talked to my wife this morning. She told me to immediately send my savings back home. I’m not panicking, but my family is scared,` said John Vincent – an air conditioning repairman from the Philippines.

The shortage of USD does not mean that Qatar – one of the countries with the largest average GDP and foreign exchange reserves in the world – is out of money.

Qataris massively stocked up on food

Banks in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt began restricting transactions with Qatar last week.

This does not mean they completely ban doing business with Qatar, but its impact may not be much different.

Meanwhile, many Western banks in Qatar are still operating normally.

However, many Western banks have stopped new services here, such as interbank lending or syndicated loans.

Another reason for the USD shortage is seasonal factors, money exchange counters in Qatar said.

`All banks and money exchange counters are out of USD. They are trying to get foreign currency from other countries,` said an employee at the Qatar-UAE Exchange.

Shares of 5 of the 6 banks allegedly having transactions with terrorists – UAE – Qatar National Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Qatar International Islamic Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, Doha Bank fell last week.

Qatari banks currently have about 60 billion riyadh ($16.5 billion) in customer and interbank deposits from other Gulf countries, SICO Bahrain estimates.