Qatar and United States offer growth opportunities to businesses.
The bilateral trade volume between the two countries is set to rise further as economies come out of coro-navirus pandemic, said a senior US official during a webinar.
Natalie Baker, Chargé d’Affaires, US Embassy in Qatar discussed the key policy areas that play a role in shaping the US-Qatar bilateral relationship during a virtual event hosted by Doha Bank jointly with US Embassy in Doha entitled ‘US – Qatar Bilateral Cooperation and Opportunities in Trade and Investment’.
Speaking about the commercial trade and investment partnership, Baker high-lighted that the United States remains Qatar’s largest foreign direct investor, two-way trade totaled more than $4.6bn in 2020.
Addressing about the US companies that are active in the market, she said, “I am impressed with the depth and breadth of US companies highlighting that American tech-nical expertise and exports form a major part of many of Qatar’s signature projects - from the North Field LNG extension to the country’s digital transformation and many opportunities lie ahead,” she added. “There is so much opportunities for growth in Qatar and US, businesses can and should be at the forefront of all of these exciting initiatives.”
Responding to a query about how US-Qatar can work together on climate change, Baker said, “We would love to do joint investment projects for example here and in other countries to promote more clean energy solutions. There are many coun-tries that depend on outdated technology, and we believe that together we can work to improve the positions and continue to combat climate change through those types of initiatives.”
She explored areas for further enhancing economic cooperation and initiatives aimed at strengthening people to people ties between Americans and Qataris.
Baker said, “Much of my work since last three months has been focused on cooper-ation with Qatar on Afghanistan and the mas-sively location of out rest Afghans, American citizens, legal permanent residents and visa holders from Afghanistan to Doha. This effort of historic proportions is a true testimony of strength of our bilateral relationship and deep US partnership with Qatar.”
She added “Qatar stepped up at a very key moment on the global stage and together we have evacuated and resettled more than 60,000 people through Qatar since the beginning of operation in mid-August which is almost half the total number individuals we evacuated from Afghanistan.”
“Throughout 2021 we also celebrated the ‘Qatar-USA Year of Culture’. We have used these opportunities to bolster ties between our two nations by facilitating cul-tural exchanges between Qataris and Amer-icans at an individual, organisational, and national level,” Baker said. She added, “As we prepare to close our the ‘Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture’ we invite you to par-ticipate in the Qatar-USA festival to be held from November 24-29 in Doha. We will host a number of cultural envoys from United States as well and are looking towards next year celebrating 50 years of the US embassy’s presence in Doha.”
“The Doha International Book Fair in January of next year will also serve as an opportunity for us to redouble our public engagement as we look to deepen our people to people ties with 50 years of part-nership behind us and many more to come,” she added.
