Photo used for representation only
Doha: The embassy of Korea in line with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (Kotra), Qatar Chamber (QC) and Invest Qatar organized a day-long event yesterday highlighting on the foreground of “future strategy for diversifying economic cooperation between Korea and Qatar”.
Ambassador of Korea to Qatar, H E Joon-ho Lee; H E Sultan bin Rashid Al Khater, Undersecretary of MoCI; Mohamed bin Towar Al Kuwari, first vice-chairman, QC, along with other delegations took part in the business forum meeting held at Sheraton hotel Doha in addition to a number of Korean officials via zoom platform.
The sidelines of the event witnessed a series of trade cooperation between the two countries on various fields such as digital technology, healthcare, smart-farm, renewable energy, and finance.
During his opening remarks, Lee stressed on the importance of ‘promoting business exchanges’ between the two nations and Korea’s significant part it has on economic enhancement of the Gulf state since its diplomatic ties began in 1974.
He said: “Qatar is the largest LNG exporter to Korea and Korea’s second largest trade partner in the Middle East. Qatar has contributed to the energy security and economic development of Korea.”
“Regarding smart-farm, many Korean companies are well equipped with state-of-the-art technologies and made great success in their smart farm projects. And I am sure these Korean companies can be a capable and effective partner for Qatar’s future development in the smart farming,” he added.
Elaborating on the diversification of economic cooperation between both the countries, Kwang Ho Ryou, senior researcher at Korean Institute for International Economy Policy (KEIP) presented the bilateral relations and trade volume data via online platform.
Stating his findings on a recent study, he said that, “Korea-Qatar relation is very much focused in the energy industry.”
Ryou also stressed on the potential cooperation sectors between the countries, expansion of cooperation and also on promoting direct investments from Korea to Qatar.
“Even though Korea’s export to Qatar is double-diversified, the total volume is very small compared to Qatar’s export to Korea,” he added.
Representatives from KOTRA, Qatar Investment and Business Environment and Qatar Financial Sector, also discussed possible ways to promote investment opportunities with the aim to fortify economic relations between the two countries.
