“I never saved in my life,” says Ghazi, a Qatari businessman.
Since he began working 35 years ago, he has been in debt. He owes a lot of money, not for one loan but for “three company loans and a bank loan, personal loans, car loans – three car loans”, he says.
Ghazi is not alone. Seventy-five per cent of Qatari families are in debt, most owing in excess of QR250,000 ($68,600), according to a 2011 Qatar National Development Strategy report. Some of this can be attributed to the country’s most economically disadvantaged families struggling to make ends meet, but the report gave another reason for the indebtedness: Qataris are living beyond their means, in a “prevailing culture of extravagance and conspicuous consumption”.
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