Qatar ranked top among 40 countries where the spending power of managers is more than that of their US counterparts, a study titled The World Pay Report by global management consultancy company Hay Group has revealed.

Hay Group said the study examines the average salary of a management level employee (roughly equivalent to a head of department or function in a large multinational company), applies the relevant tax rate for that salary, and subtracts a generic 'cost of living' measure, to reach a ranking of the relative spending power of managers in 51 countries around the world.

“Spending power of managers in Qatar ranked more than 140 per cent or two and half times more than that of managers in the United States. This is despite a strong increase in cost of living, which has been more than matched by the increase in wages,” said the study.

Vijay Gandhi of Hay Group Middle East, said: 'Going forward, we are not going to witness a paradigm shift in rankings of the Gulf countries in the World Pay Report any time soon. Senior managers continue to get a salary increase of between 15 to 20 per cent, which is very aggressive compared to most other countries.”

The report said managers' spending power appears to have grown over the past year, even after taking into account the potentially inflationary impact of the drop in the US dollar.

All other GCC economies, besides Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are new entrants in the study.

Hay Group said the methodology used in the study is the company's universal definition of what constitutes a ‘manager’ to ensure that results are consistent around the globe.

It said cost of living and tax were then taken into account to reveal disposable income levels – the true purchasing power of executive salaries for 51 countries.

The spending power of managers in each country was then indexed, using the spending power of USA managers as the base line. All local currency figures were converted to US dollars for purposes of comparison.

The table, below, ranks management spending power, and provides an index using the USA as the base point of measurement: (Rank, Country, Index):

1 Qatar* (241.7), 2 United Arab Emirates (218.2), 3 Saudi Arabia (210.1), 4 Hong Kong (199.6), 5 Turkey (189.2), 6 Oman* (180.4), 7 Kuwait* (179.0), 8 Romania (168.6), 9 Russia (163.7), 10 Thailand (162.0), 11 Argentina (159.8), 12 Mexico (152.2), 13 Bahrain* (152.0), 14 Poland (147.1), 15 Austria (146.8), 16 Lithuania (145.7), 17 China (145.0), 18 Germany (144.7), 19 Spain (144.4), 20 Switzerland (144.2), 21 Greece (141.4), 22 Singapore (141.3), 23 Brazil (134.6), 24 Malaysia (133.9), 25 Portugal (132.1), 26 Ireland (129.2), 27 Slovakia (126.5), 28 Czech Republic (122.4), 29 New Zealand (114.9), 30 Netherlands (113.5), 31 Latvia (113.3), 32 Italy (109.7), 33 France (109.6), 34 Ukraine (109.5), 35 South Korea (108.6), 36 South Africa (107.8), 37 Australia (107.1), 38 India (106.1), 39 Japan (106.0), 40 Hungary (105.0), 41 United States of America (100.0), 42 Belgium (97.7), 43 Estonia (95.9), 44 Egypt (93.7), 45 Canada (93.6), 46 Denmark (90.2), 47 United Kingdom (88.9), 48 Norway (84.9), 49 Indonesia (82.1), 50 Finland (78.6), 51 Sweden (75.6). * new entry in 2008. - TradeArabia News Service