Qatar's new credit bureau will improve risk management in banks and competition for good credit may lower rates, its chief executive said on Thursday, and aims to curtail market delinquenices in the country.

Qatar's central bank this week launched the bureau to assess individuals' credit worthiness and limit lending risks.

'It is very important to have a credit bureau in Qatar. Before, banks used to give a loan based on the information that they had only. But now, the banks will be able to see the (customer's) total exposure in the market, the total loan that he has, and also any negative information or delinquencies,' Bandar Bin Mohammed al-Thani, chief executive officer of Qatar's Credit Bureau, told Reuters.

'Everybody will compete to give credit to good persons, which will in an indirect way bring down the interest rates because competition will increase,' he said.

The global downturn cut output and froze credit in the world's top oil exporting region in 2009, limiting growth in the six Gulf countries last year. But rising crude prices and a pick-up in credit growth are expected to support growth in 2011.

'We did not have enough information to assess risks on people and companies. This lack of information caused wrong decisions. By the end of the year we will see the results,' he said.

Thani said he could not give forecasts for credit growth in Qatar this year.

Private credit growth in Qatar, the world's top liquefied natural gas exporter which has so far escaped unrest sweeping through the Arab world, decreased to 4.3 per cent at the end of January, from 7.6 per cent in the previous month, data from the central bank showed.

Money supply in the country grew by 21 per cent year-on-year at the end of January, its slowest pace in four months.

The credit services will later be extended to telecommunications and insurance companies, the central bank said.

In December, the United Arab Emirates also established a credit rating office to help banks make better lending decisions.-Reuters