Dubai’s position went down eight places to become the 36th leading financial hub, and some commentators have suggested that Dubai should be concerned that Qatar has overtaken it on these rankings. Bahrain fell six places to rank 55th, Riyadh rose four place to 66th and Abu Dhabi is beginning to get itself noticed, although not yet in the top 75 global financial centres.

The GFCI provides profiles, ratings and rankings for 75 financial centres, drawing on responses to an online survey as well as external factors. The GFCI was first published in March 2007 and has subsequently been updated and published every six months. Successive growth in the number of respondents and data has enabled the publishers to highlight the changing priorities and concerns of financial professionals over this time, particularly since financial crises began to unfold in 2007 and 2008.

With the world’s third-largest gas reserves, the IMF expects Qatar’s real GDP to grow by over 20% this year, exceeding even the strong growth of the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Qatar has successfully established a growing financial services industry, which is now a significant contributor to national GDP after hydrocarbons.

The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) promotes itself as a key driver of this growth, offering international and local firms an onshore trading environment with a robust legal structure based on English common law, “a world class regulatory structure and one of the friendliest tax regimes in the World”. The QFC Authority is differentiated from other financial centres in the region by its specific focus on three hubs, creating a sustainable platform for regional growth in reinsurance, captive insurance and asset management.

Shashank Srivastava, Acting CEO of the QFC Authority, which sponsored the GFCI 10, said: “I am delighted that Qatar has been recognized as the leading financial centre in the Middle East for the first time by the GFC Index. Qatar’s latest rise of 39 points in the GFC Index also strongly maintains its existing world ranking of 30th and consolidates its earlier impressive rise of four places in the world rankings from 34th to 30th in March this year.”

“Qatar’s economy continues to perform exceptionally well against a documented backdrop of international and regional pressures while its business environment is increasingly recognized for the highest standards of transparency and quality of regulation – increasing its regional and global profile as a result.”

“These excellent results, together with Qatar’s recent rise of three places in the latest World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report to rank 14th in the world, the highest ranking of any state in the GCC, reinforce my belief that the Qatar Financial Centre offers financial services firms a uniquely attractive platform from which to grow their business both in Qatar and the broader GCC region.”

GFCI 10 uses 28,604 financial centre assessments completed by 1,887 financial services professionals. Since 2007, well over 100,000 assessments from over 6,000 respondents have built the index. GFCI is updated regularly and ratings change as assessments and instrumental factors change.