DOHA, June 24 — Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani told his family he’ll hand over power to his son, state-owned Al Jazeera reported, in the biggest leadership shake up in 18 years in the world’s richest country.

British-educated Sheikh Tamim, 33, has steadily acquired a prominent role in Qatar since his appointment as crown prince in 2003. He serves as chairman of the Qatar Investment Authority, the country’s primary sovereign wealth fund, and headed Qatar’s bid for the 2020 Olympics.

Sheikh Tamim “is a legacy builder,” Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in Doha, said prior to the announcement. “He’s not there to cause ruptures in the policy. He’s very much part and parcel of the initiative of his highness.”

In the past five years, the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas producer bought stakes in Barclays Plc, the U.K.’s second-biggest bank, and Volkswagen AG, Europe’s largest carmaker. It supported uprisings in Syria and Libya and lent US$8 billion (RM24 billion) to Egypt’s post-Hosni Mubarak government. Qatar plans to spend US$200 billion on infrastructure before hosting the 2022 soccer World Cup, the most-watched sporting event.

The rise of Sheikh Tamim, the fourth son of Sheikh Hamad, will be the first peaceful transfer of authority in the emirate since 1960. Sheikh Hamad, 61 this year, overthrew his father, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Hamad Al Thani, in a bloodless coup in 1995. Sheikh Khalifa deposed his cousin in 1972.

Gas Exports

Qatar, holder of the third-largest gas reserves, produces about 30 per cent of the world’s supply of LNG, gas chilled for transport by ship. Exports of the fuel gave Qatar’s 1.9 million people the largest per capita gross domestic product in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Sheikh Tamim will lead Qatar as it invests more in its infrastructure before the World Cup as gas exports level off and economic growth slows. The country plans to build a US$35 billion rail network as well as a new port, highways and stadiums.

Growth slowed to 6.2 per cent last year from 17 per cent in 2010, according to a report in May by Qatar National Bank, the country’s largest lender. Citigroup Inc. estimates Qatar’s budget surplus will turn to a deficit by 2015. Money from the sovereign wealth fund will start diminishing and some investment may be sold to finance the government, Farouk Soussa, the bank’s Dubai-based chief Middle East economist said on May 20.

Porsche Stake

Qatar Holding LLC, the foreign investment arm of the sovereign wealth fund, said on June 17 it sold its 10 per cent stake in Porsche Automobile Holding SE to the Porsche-Piech family. The fund holds stakes in Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., Total SA, Credit Suisse Group AG, Tiffany & Co. and owns outright Harrods department store in London.

Last year, it pushed Glencore International Plc to increase its offer for Swiss miner Xstrata in a US$31 billion acquisition, the biggest deal of the past 12 months.

Sheikh Tamim graduated from the U.K.’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1998 after leaving Sherborne School in England a year earlier, according to the official palace website.

He inherits power from an emir who transformed Qatar into a regional leader from a fragile, debt-ridden Persian Gulf emirate. Sheikh Hamad ruled as the country’s economy grew seven- fold and its population more than tripled. He introduced municipal elections and, a year after assuming power, started Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news network.

Not Popular

As the country grew wealthier, its emir became increasingly assertive abroad, providing diplomatic recognition to Syria’s opposition and backing the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi.

The voluntary transfer of power from a successor is “really unprecedented in the modern or recent history of Gulf monarchies,” Shadi Hamid, director of research at Brookings Institute’s Doha Center, said by phone from the Qatari capital. “This is in a long line of Qatari moves that have gone against the grain.”

In recent months, the emirate faced setbacks in its foreign policy. In Syria, peaceful protests that started in 2011 have denigrated into a bloody civil war. The emirate’s support for the opposition was undermined by the rebel loss of the strategic city of al-Qusair in early June.

In Libya, where the emirate sent fighter jets to join NATO against Qaddafi in 2011, Qatar’s flag and effigies of the emir were burned last month by protesters in Benghazi who accused Qatar of funding the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatari flags were also burned in Egypt, Al Ahram newspaper said on April 20.

“It would be good for Qatar to go back to being quiet again,” Stephens of the Royal United Services Institute said. “Half the Arab world hates Qatar right now.” — AFP