Qatar plans to cut corporate tax to 10 per cent next year, Finance Minister Youssef Kamal said on Wednesday, as the Gulf state seeks to attract investors. The corporate tax rate is currently as much as 35 per cent.

"There is a tax bill about to be issued that would bring down the tax to 10 per cent. It would be implemented as of 2010," Kamal told a conference in remarks broadcast by Al Jazeera television.

Qatar, the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, has the world's friendliest tax climate, according to Forbes 2009 Tax Misery and Reform Index, which evaluates policies that attract or repel capital and talent.

Qatar is encouraging foreign investment and is spending billions of dollars to develop its non-oil economy to curb reliance on oil and gas income, which contributed over 60 per cent of the small country's gross domestic product. The emirate, which has the highest standard of living in the world according to International Monetary Fund data, expects its economy to grow nine per cent this year and 16 per cent next year, Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani said in a speech on Tuesday, according to the state-run Qatar News Agency.

Qatar's consumer prices fell 7.4 per cent in the third quarter from the year-earlier period, according to data on the Qatar's statistics authority website. Consumer prices fell 2.9 per cent in the second quarter from a year ago.

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