WE BUILT THIS CITY ON GAS AND OIL
WORDS · DAVID WALKERA
rid, desert-ringed, bathed in scorching heat, the Qatari capital Doha boasts few of a city’s
usual natural advantages. Yet one is decisive: Qatar shares rights to the world’s largest gas
field, the Persian Gulf’s North Dome, and to huge oil reserves besides.
In just a few decades, gas and oil wealth has turned a backwater fishing port into a forest of glass and
steel towers. The city has reclaimed land from the sea with a series of giant marinas and man-made
islands, as it tries to make itself the Gulf’s commercial capital.BUILT ON OIL
Hydrocarbons – gas and oil – fuel the
desalination plants that supply the city’s water
and let it sustain a core population of more
than 700,000 in the searing desert heat.
Those hydrocarbons also contribute more
than 60 per cent of Qatar’s GDP.
Hydrocarbon money has given Doha
probably the highest GDP per capita of any
large city on earth. A huge government fund
now underpins the city’s development;
its assets include London’s Shard tower
and Harrods department store.
But falling oil prices have slowed growth
from the 20 per cent annual rates seen in the
early 2000s. The Qatari government
has responded by cutting back spending
programs, and job cuts have arrived at state-
owned Qatar Rail and Qatar Petroleum.
And profligate use of oil has helped make it
one of the world’s most polluted capital cities,
according to the World Health Organization.POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY
Doha’s immediate future is hostage to Qatar’s rocky
relationship with its Persian Gulf neighbours, including
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen. In June,
these countries cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and
imposed an economic embargo over its support of Islamist
groups and its alignment with Iran. Even if it does not last,
the dispute has unsettled the city. Borrowing costs are up,
and uncertainty over Doha’s future in the region has cut
investment flows; its horizon may soon show fewer cranes.EXPATRIATES
This city has been built by an enormous pool of mostly male
non-Qatari labour from places like India, Nepal, Bangladesh and the
Philippines. These expatriates, more than three-quarters of the city’s
population, mostly subsist on less than US$230 a month, with claims
of high death rates on the World Cup soccer stadium and other
construction projects. Legal protection remains thin. On the other
hand, Qatar admits more temporary economic migrants, relatively
speaking, than almost any other nation on earth.152 | theceomagazine.com