Qatar National Bank (QNB), the largest lender in the Gulf, is expected to post another quarter of healthy profits on Tuesday, with high public spending at home and rising revenue from its international operations helping underpin growth.

With QNB viewed as a gauge of the wider Qatari economy, the bank's fourth-quarter results should signal the state's resilience so far to falling oil prices, say analysts.

The world's largest liquefied natural gas exporter, Qatar depends more on shipments of that commodity than oil, although prices of the two are closely correlated.

Fifty percent owned by Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, QNB's fortunes are entwined with those of the state, especially as public sector loans account for about 60 percent of QNB's lending activity and more 50 percent of its deposit base, according to HSBC.

"There will be a positive trend in 2015 in that there will be a pick-up in government infrastructure projects. They can fund these projects even with lower oil prices and that will provide potential for credit growth for Qatar banks," said Laila Sadek, director of financial institutions at Fitch Ratings.

Analysts surveyed by Reuters expect the bank to post an average net profit of 2.57 billion riyals ($685 million) in the fourth quarter, up 8.3 percent from the same period of 2013.

QNB has been a major beneficiary of Qatar's increase in public spending in recent years as the state invests in development projects and prepares to host the 2022 soccer World Cup.

Qatar expects its economy will grow by 7.7 percent in 2015 despite the oil price slide, the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics said last month.

Still, QNB's year-on-year lending growth has slipped in the past two quarters, with delays in getting infrastructure projects started partially to blame

The bank's low cost base and low provisioning requirements would help shield it from slower credit growth of between 8 and 10 percent in 2015, said Elena Panayiotou, financial institutions analyst at Moody's Investors Service.

And despite sluggish lending in those quarters, QNB has continued to post strong profit growth, with its third-quarter earnings up 21 percent year-on-year.

Like several other Gulf lenders, QNB has been focusing on expanding outside its small domestic market, a drive which has gained urgency as QNB's lending profitability has been squeezed by competition from other cash-rich Qatari banks.

The fourth-quarter results will be the first since the bank acquired a 23.5 percent stake in pan-African lender Ecobank in September. It also bought Societe Generale's Egyptian business for $2 billion in March 2013 and has a presence in markets including the UAE, Libya, Mauritania, South Sudan, Sudan and Tunisia.

Those markets are likely to widen as the bank aims to achieve a profit contribution of around 40 percent from its overseas operations by 2017 -- the year it wants to be the biggest bank in the Middle East and Africa.

It is currently second in that geography by assets, behind South Africa's Standard Bank.

QNB is eyeing acquisitions or mergers in markets such as Turkey, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, the management have said.-Reuters