Qatar-Egypt trade exchange saw a 76.2% spike within the first 11 months of 2022, jumping up to $80.1 million from just $45.5 million in 2021.
Qatar’s Al Mana Group is planning to invest more than $60 million in Egypt next year mostly in the automotive sector, the firm’s executive director Abdulaziz Hamad Al-Mana announced on Tuesday.
Al-Mana’s announcement, widely cited by Egyptian media, came during the Egyptian-Qatari Economic Investment Forum in Cairo, attended by business officials from both countries. Qatar’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Mohammed bin Qassim was also in attendance.
The Al-Mana chief explained that the majority of the upcoming investments would be injected into “a car assembly plant”, though the brand has not yet been decided or announced.
However, he said the cars would be Chinese due to the local market’s demands.
The Qatari entity is also exploring other investment opportunities in Egypt, with Al-Mana noting that there are promising opportunities in the Suez Canal Economic Zone.
Meanwhile, Qatar’s minister of commerce and industry said that the Gulf state had already invested more than $5.5 billion in numerous sectors in Egypt, Egypt Today reported. The investments cover finance, real estate, energy among others.
The event in Egypt displayed the warming of ties between Doha and Cairo following the end of the three-year diplomatic rift.
In 2017, Egypt joined Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in severing ties with Qatar while imposing an illegal air, land and sea blockade on the country—triggering the region’s worst diplomatic crisis.
The quartet accused Qatar of supporting terrorism at the time, though Doha had consistently and vehemently denied those allegations as “baseless”.
By 2021, the Gulf row had effectively come to an end with the signing of the Al-Ula Declaration at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Saudi Arabia.
Just hours after signing the historic accord, Qatar Diar Real Estate Company officially opened its prestigious and wholly-owned St. Regis Hotel in Cairo.
Then, in March 2022, the Gulf state announced the signing of investment deals totalling $5 billion between Doha and Cairo during the visit of Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani to Egypt.
Qatar-Egypt trade exchange saw a 76.2% spike within the first 11 months of 2022, jumping up to $80.1 million from just $45.5 million in 2021, per figures shared by Cairo’s Al Ahram.
Qatar is also the third largest Arab investor in Egypt, with 160 Qatari companies pumping nearly $2 billion worth of investments into Cairo’s economy.
Meanwhile last month, Egypt’s EGAS has awarded QatarEnergy a new offshore exploration block following a “competitive” bidding round. QatarEnergy is set to hold 33% of a consortium that also comprises Italy’s ENI (34%) and the United Kingdom’s BP (33%).
The latest contract added to QatarEnergy’s list of other offshore explorations, including Red Sea Block 3 and Block 4, and the North Marakia block in the Mediterranean Sea.
The East Port Said block is located offshore Egypt’s northeastern Mediterranean coast. It boasts a depth of up to 800 metres and occupies an area of approximately 2,600 square kilometres.