The unwavering support extended by the government to the country’s vibrant private sector during the blockade years, underscores the government’s conviction in the role of private companies in the economic sustainable development of the country and the challenges facing its growth.
The government firmly stood behind the private sector and extended full support to successfully navigate the initial hardships faced by the blockade.
The support from the government helped many private sector companies to expand their footprints to foreign markets. The government has taken a lot of initiatives and measures to support the private sector to overcome the kind of limitations and impact they faced after the siege. Qatar has actually moved with a much faster pace to achieve its goals and long term vision after the blockade.
The country, under its wise leadership, coupled with the firm determination of government entities and private sector, proved that the blockading countries failed in their move. The Qatari economy not only remained resilient despite the adverse impact of the blockade, rather it transformed the challenges into opportunities in its favour.
The private sector believes that the blockade has worked as a catalyst for the country’s progress. It motivated the private businesses and accelerated the pace of economic diversification. The economic blockade against Qatar leveraged the country’s commitment to become a sustainable economy. The massive budgetary allocation for the mega projects and huge spending in social sectors such as health and education, under the national budget for 2020, coupled with the Qatar Petroleum’s investments within the country, helped the private sector in a big way to face the blockade impact.
In a communiqué issued by the Qatar Chamber to mark the third year of blockade, the QC Chairman Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim Al Thani has said that the unjust blockade imposed on Qatar three years ago has not only miserably failed to slow down the rapid growth of Qatari economy, but the country has also managed to transform its negative impacts into benefits.
He revealed that about 47,000 new companies have been established in Qatar during the years of siege, assuring that the blockade period witnessed establishing more foreign investments, especially in the light of legislations and incentives offered by the state. QC Chairman said several factors helped the country defeat the siege and transform it into economic benefits, including the economic and legislative environment, sound strategic plans as well as co-operation among all bodies, and trade relations with friendly countries.
The private sector succeeded in avoiding the disruption of goods that were imported from siege countries to the Qatari market by land by securing the necessary needs of the local market and developing industry sector that has witnessed a steady growth in the number of factories and increase in the productive capacity of existing factories.
Regarding the industrial sector, the QC Chairman noted that the siege has helped in accelerating the state’s approach toward encouraging local industry and facilitating procedures for new industries.
About 1,464 industrial establishments operating and licensed were registered by the end of 2019 in all industrial sectors, compared to 1,171 by the end of 2016. This means the establishment of some 293 new factories during the siege years, including 162 factories in the first year of siege in 2017, 72 factories in the second year 2018, and 59 factories in the third year 2019.
Qatar’s well-calibrated e economic strategy, in line with its ambitious Qatar National vision 2030, helped the country achieve significant economic development during the post-blockade era, which helped increase the private sector contribution to the national GDP at a significant rate.
Qatar’s wise leadership wanted to ensure that private sector is playing a greater role in the economic development of the country and ensured the participation of the private sector companies in all the government-supported mega projects. The private sector played lead role over the past three years to open up new channels of communication with foreign markets. QBA hosted a large number of high-level trade delegations with the support of the government and showcased the huge investment opportunities in Qatar. These meetings also help private companies in Qatar to expand their operations to foreign markets.
The amendment of the law allowing foreign investors to hold full ownership in Qatar’s residential and commercial sectors, is expected to give a massive boost to the country’s real estate sector. The introduction of more freehold zones indicates greater efforts from the Qatari government to diversify away from oil revenue. And incentives by the government to boost industry outside of the hydrocarbons sector is seeing investment trickle into logistics and manufacturing, which will offer great opportunities for the private sector.
The recently ratified PPP law will also help the private sector will play a bigger role in the delivery and operation of major public sector projects. Public sector will enable government to pay for assets over a number of years or allow the asset to pay for itself, with user demand risk passed to the private sector developer.
With the new law, we can expect more efficient asset delivery and performance - leveraging the experience and expertise of specialist private sector developers and operators to raise the quality and efficiency of public infrastructure and services.
The new law will also help attract foreign investors and lenders into local economies - by offering fixed return low risk long term investment opportunities, with a guaranteed repayment structure backed by a sovereign entity; and building better and more transparent relationships between the public and private sectors.
