Qatar has made significant strides to develop a competitive digital ecosystem and turn the State into a hub for digital innovation and entrepreneurs. Qatar’s thriving market is a catalyst for new digital companies, including Kyrgyz firms, to setup their businesses and expand in the region, given the lucrative untapped opportunities, discussed a panel of experts in a webinar recently.
The webinar entitled ‘Emerging Digital Opportunities: Qatar and Kyrgyz Republic discussed the latest developments in the digital ecosystem in Qatar and explored opportunities for Kyrgyz investors and firms to join Qatar’s digital sector. It also highlighted the unique business journey offered by QFC, starting with the swift setup to launching businesses.
The chief guest, Ambassador of Kyrgyz Republic to Qatar H E Chyngyz Eshimbekov, said, “I am very positive that our joint efforts and introducing IT community of Kyrgyzstan to Qatari market will lead to yet another perspective projects and enhancement of excellent and brotherly relations between our countries. It is indeed an honour for us to engage in activity for the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) which is truly dynamic and one of the leading institutions in Qatar and has increasing role in supporting and extending favourable business climate for entrepreneurs from all over the world,” he added.
Jahongirbek Burhonov, Vice President, Business Development said, “The current digital spending in Qatar in 2019 was estimated around $2.1 to $2.3bn and the analysis shows by 2023 the digital spending market will increase around $3.2bn. Qatar’s digital opportunity is expected to become 1.4 times of its current size.”
“For a digital business, there are a lot of opportunities in Qatar. The digital market is growing about 8 to 9 percent every year. The opportunities such as cloud computing, cyber computing, IoT, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, system integration, e-commerce etc. are the leading technology segments.
He noted, Qatar’s digital industry is poised for rapid growth fueled by projects envisaging investment of $80bn in next few years. The opportunities are endless and in the next few years these opportunities will amount to $80bn. The QFC has welcome more than 300 firms last year and 90 of them were licensed in the digital space. Given Qatar’s fast pace economy and Kyrgyzstan’s available talent in IT market there is a great potential for Kyrgyz companies to setup operations here.
Sheikha Alanoud bint Hamad Al Thani, Managing Director of Business Development, QFC said in the opening remarks, “The two countries diplomatic relations were established in 1998. Looking at the years of relations between Kyrgyz Republic and the State of Qatar there are limitless opportunities that can reach new avenues of cooperation between the brotherly nations and particularly in business and trade. Relatively, this area holds significant role in growth across diverse sectors. However, we can clearly identify the digital sector among the strategic growth accelerators that is bridging strong ties between nations”.
She said, the heavy investment in the ICT infrastructure does not only take forward Qatar’s digital transformation strategy it also contributes to the increasing market size by roughly 40 percent of its current pace.
She added that despite the challenges of 2020, we have demonstrated success in attracting digital companies to our platform. Qatar has ranked first worldwide on the Digital Accessibility Rights Evaluation Index 2020 (DARE Index 2020) released by the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict). These rankings point to an incredible secure business and economic environment which bolsters investor confidence and turns Qatar into the favourable destination for digital firms, she added.
Aman Tentiyev Founder and CEO, Namba Group in Kyrgyzstan talked about ecosystem of lifestyle services and payment platform, highlighting the official GDP of Kyrgyzstan that is $8.45bn but the real sector of the GDP is close to $17bn, inflation ration is 3.7 percent and FDI inflow about 13 percent.
Dinara Ruslan, Chairman of Kyrgyz software and services developer’s association that is responsible for creating Kyrgyz ecosystem and creating strategies for digital IT advancements. “Due to profitable conditions in Kyrgyz Republic, we have achieved great results in IT sector there are more than 10,000 IT specialists on local IT market and the numbers are growing. There are over 200 plus IT companies, providing their services to the whole world,” she said.
