Qatar's annual inflation rate eased to 2.1 per cent in November from 2.5 per cent in October, partly because of a drop in transport and communications costs, the country's statistics authority said on Tuesday.

Consumer prices rose 0.1 per cent month-on-month in November after a 0.4 per cent rise in October, data from Qatar's Statistics Authority showed.

With the economy growing strongly, the world's top liquefied natural gas exporter returned to annual inflation last December after a protracted period of deflation. October's annual inflation was the highest since at least the start of 2010, when the authority began publishing year-on-year data every month.

'The trend that inflation was higher at the beginning of the year was mostly due to the low base effect, because there was actual deflation in 2010. But the uptick in inflation, we don't see it as a new beginning of major inflationary pressures,” said Philippe Dauba-Pantanacce, senior Mena economist, Standard Chartered.

'We forecast annual inflation will average 2.4 percent in 2011, and we think that in Qatar there could be a slight uptick in 2012 to 3.3 percent as the non-oil economy starts to pick up, especially in the construction sector related to all the infrastructure projects.' – Reuters