The Government of Qatar issued a US $ 1 billion sovereign Eurobond in mid-1999.  The bonds are of ten-year maturity due on May 21, 2009 and were initially priced at 99.936 with a 9.5% semi-annual coupon to yield 9.51%.  The yield represented a spread of 395 basis points above the November 2008 US Treasury Bonds.  The Issue was set initially at US $ 500 million, then was raised to US $ 1 billion due to strong investor demand; yet was approximately two times oversubscribed.  

A year later, in late June 2000, the Government of Qatar launched the Second Issue of US $ 1.4 billion sovereign Eurobonds.  The bonds are of thirty-year maturity due on June 29, 2030 and carry a semi-annual coupon of 9.75%.

In September 2003, the Government issued a US $ 700 million Islamic Trust Certificate (ITC or Sukuk).  The issued Sukuk had an A+ Standard and Poor’s rating, was endorsed by the Bahrain-based International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM), and was heavily over-subscribed.  The Qatari Sukuk carried variable yield at 40 basis points above the LIBOR rate.

On the other hand, Qatar Central Bank (QCB) conducted seven issuances on behalf of the Ministry of Finance since mid-1999, the total of which amounted to 12 billion Qatari Riyal (QR).  Domestic government bonds are of three to five-year maturity with semi-annual coupon of 5-8% where some bonds carried variable rate.  All bonds were priced at QR 10,000.  Subscription was restricted to local banks but the last one was available for insurance, investment companies, and semi-government enterprises.  Except the First, revenues of all Issues were used to redeem the previous issuances.