Qatar, the world's biggest natural gas exporter, has raised $5 billion with its first sovereign bond issue in two years, capitalising on investors' appetite for safe havens as the European debt crisis destabilises global markets.
The tiny Gulf Arab state sold $2 billion in five-year bonds at a yield of 3.184 percent, $2 billion of 10-year bonds with a yield of 4.63 percent, and $1 billion of 30-year bonds yielding 5.825 percent.
The international bond sale, priced late on Tuesday, was the biggest from the Gulf this year. Analysts polled by Reuters in September forecast Qatar's economy would grow 18.9 percent in 2011, slowing to 7.7 percent in 2012 -- still an extremely fast rate by global standards -- as the country's decades-long gas expansion programme wound down.
Qatar's last global bond deal was a three-tranche, $7 billion issue in November 2009.