Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa, CEO of Qatar Development Bank (QDB).
With regional and global rankings affirming the developments taking place in the country’s business sector, Qatar today is one of the most prominent investment destinations in the region for local and foreign investors, Qatar Development Bank’s (QDB) CEO Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa said yesterday at the opening of the third Investment Forum 2020.
The one-day virtual forum under the theme ‘Business Transformation & Growth’ which was organised by the QDB, discussed the current challenges as well as the developments taking place in the country’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, and highlighted the global trends in the investments scene.
In his opening speech, Al Khalifa reiterated that Qatar offers investors with promising growth opportunities across sectors and industries. “Not only is the country’s economy considered the 10th most competitive economy worldwide and the first in the Arab world for investment security, Qatar also ranks third globally and first in the MENA region in the National Entrepreneurship Context Index according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report. There is no doubt that Qatar is one of the most prominent investment destinations in the region for both local and foreign investors,” said Al Khalifa.
He went on to highlight the World Bank’s report which stated that Qatar’s ambitious reforms to improve its business regulations has also earned the country a spot in the top 20 global business environment improvers according to the World Bank Group’s Doing Business 2020 report.
“Despite the challenging global backdrop of 2020 when the coronavirus outbreak started, the QDB response was not only swift and agile, but was well-integrated within the national state’s measures to support the private sector and the entrepreneurs. From delaying SMEs non-repayment without interests and fees, introducing business continuity measures, to launching the Qatar 5bn national guarantee programme, and establishing the revive programme to help SMEs thrive in a post-COVID world. This year, we also launched the Qatar FinTech Hub to position Qatar as a leading FinTech hub in the world with Microsoft as a technology partner among other prominent partners,” he added.
During a panel discussion on ‘Startup Transformation & Growth’, the Deputy CEO of the Qatar Free Zones Authority (QFZA), Abdulla Al Misnad, said that despite being a small country, Qatar which has a full system in place, can be a very good potential testing bed for specific technologies which can eventually be deployed in other regions.
“This opens the door for technology deployment. These technologies can have applications in other regions. And from there it can become a good stepping stone for other markets,” he added.
The discussion also highlighted the country’s diversification efforts and pointed to global expansions as a way for businesses to grow.
Prominent Angel investor Julian Costley said: “I don’t think the size of an economy or the scale of a potential market should be a drawback. It takes a really long time to make the transfer into a super externally focused economy. And it starts with higher education. If you look at the Irish economy, which is tiny, but has about $400bn GDP, and about $250bn of exports, which is about 60 percent. They started 25 years ago with massive focus on bringing the diaspora of Irish graduates back from all over the world. The other way they did it was tax incentives to bring in all the international companies and the infrastructure was built. And I think a number of those have been picked up in Qatar as well,” he added.
During the forum, a number of startups have also presented their pitches to investors in order to scale up their projects in Qatar and beyond.
