QIA CEO Mansoor Ebrahim Al Mahmoud speaking during a session at Qatar Economic Forum, at Ritz Carlton Hotel Doha, yesterday. PIC: Amr Diab
Doha: The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is not interested in investing in cryptocurrencies as an asset class, however it is exploring opportunity in blockchain, an official said yesterday.
“We have very clear view on this. Our team in the technology space is exploring opportunity in blockchain. This is the space we are interested in not the currency itself,” said QIA CEO Mansoor Ebrahim Al Mahmoud.
In an interview at Qatar Economic Forum, Powered by Bloomberg at Ritz Carlton Hotel Doha, Al Mahmoud said that QIA, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar is exploring opportunities to invest in various sectors including renewable energy, technologies, healthcare and infrastructure in different countries across the world.
Speaking about inflow of energy revenues, he said: “QatarEnergy has been signing partnerships to expand LNG production by 60 percent and most of the inflow will come to QIA. We have been preparing QIA for the last three years in a way to have a proper strategy to invest in all sectors.”
Al Mahmoud said that QIA will continue its activities and “by 2026 we will have this inflow when we increase our level of activities.”
Regarding the interest of QIA in investing in private tech companies, he said: “We are investing in technologies with potential to perform. We have been very active in this with full speed.
“Technologies and healthcare are two main sectors. We are investing in these sectors in US and Asia and noticed activities in Europe as well.”
To a question about exploring ESG, Al Mahmoud said: “We are very quite active in ESG. We are dealing with some of the transactions related to ESG but now we are in the phase of formalising. This is in a way that we will have a clear policy and KPI.
“We have been active in traditional renewable projects to the technologies of storing energy that we think will accelerate the production of electrical vehicles, one of our interested area,” he added.
Al Mahmoud added that QIA is also getting into venture space, and forging partnership with Rolls Royce, venturing a programme to develop an SMR which is something that if it gets successful it will be an interesting space to roll out to less developing countries.
To a question about investment in Europe, he said: “We are not stopping investment in Europe and we will go with full speed in US market and Asia.
He added that QIA will continue investing in Europe.
“During my recent visit to Europe I noticed a lot of activities and technologies space. I have positive view on Europe in general in the long term.”
Regarding investment in Africa, Al Mahmoud said: “We have been investing in renewable sector in Africa and we would like to do more and trying to find partners in Africa.”
On QIA investments in Russia, Al Mahmoud said: “We are not investing more in Russia. We are monitoring the situation in Russia and in full compliance with international sanctions. We wish and hope that the crises will be settled very soon for the sake of the people of Ukraine.”
