Trade & Investment

After weathering a succession of external shocks in recent years, Qatar’s trade and investment outlook is promising in the short and medium term. Years of low oil and gas prices, the 2017-21 economic blockade and the Covid-19 pandemic have all affected the flow of cross-border commrce and finance. The authorities are leveraging the 2022 FIFA World Cup to showcase Qatar’s wider economic opportunities, which benefit from the country’s strengthened regulatory regime, reformed administrative processes, and digitalised trade and investment operations. Qatar has actively sought foreign investment and amended laws to facilitate higher foreign ownership rates. Performance in the areas of trade and investment is set to improve further as countries around the world recover from the economic effects of the pandemic.

This chapter contains interviews with Sheikh Ali Al Waleed Al Thani, CEO, Investment Promotion Agency Qatar; Fahad Rashid Al Kaabi, CEO, Manateq; and Abdulrahman Hesham Al Sowaidi, Acting CEO, Qatar Development Bank.