The senior manager of Invest Qatar said that Doha can greatly benefit from China’s technological expertise to bolster economic growth.
Qatar’s investment promotion agency, Invest Qatar, has announced plans to boost cooperation with China to attract more Chinese investment and diversify its economy beyond oil and gas.
“We set up an office in Hong Kong to better tap into the Chinese market,” Invest Qatar’s senior manager of investor relations Fahad Ali Al Kuwari said during a technology conference in Toronto.
Al Kuwari went on to say that China excels in numerous technologies, and is arguably the best globally at hyper-scaling.
“The expertise, know-how, the talent is available in China and we would like to benefit from it,” he added. “Hopefully Qatar can provide a platform that allows Chinese companies to gain access to markets they didn’t have access to before.”
As the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), Qatar is aiming to leverage its strengths in finance and logistics to attract new investments.
The country, which has the fifth largest Islamic finance assets globally, is also emerging as a significant tourism destination, offering visa-free entry to citizens of more than 100 countries.
“We’re a very small, oil and gas rich country with around 300,000 [Qatari] people,” Al Kuwari said.
“But we would like to diversify to other sectors as well, not only with larger companies but with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well.”
In recent years, the trade volume of goods between Qatar and China has experienced substantial growth. By 2020, their bilateral trade volume had reached around $13.3bn.
In November 2023, Qatar solidified its relationship with China by finalising a 27-year agreement to supply natural gas to Sinopec, China’s leading petroleum and petrochemical enterprise.
The deal, formalised in Shanghai, entails an annual supply of three million tonnes of gas, underscoring a long-term commitment between the two nations.
The agreement not only ensures a long-term gas supply to Sinopec but also cements the company’s stake in the North Field gas expansion project.
In April, QatarEnergy and China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) inked a $6bn deal for the construction of 18 QC-Max liquified natural gas vessels, the largest of their kind.
