The Ministry of Finance is planning long-term contracts with classified local companies. Abdulaziz Zeid Al Taleb, Director of Government Procurement Regulation at the Ministry of Finance, said the long-term contract will be signed between 57 government entities and the companies, which will be known as the national long-term contract, QNA reported. He was speaking at a forum, that concluded yesterday, organised jointly by the Ministry of Energy and Trade and the Ministry of Finance to support local product.
Director of the Department of Industrial Zones at the Ministry of Energy and Industry Eng Yousef Al Emadi said the forum comes within the government’s support to industry, encouragement to locally produced items and increasing the contribution of the private sector in the sustainable development plan. Al Emadi said the aim of the forum is to introduce the local factories and products to ministries, governmental entities and institutions, suppliers and contractors from the private sector.
He added that the ministry published the local produced products on its website to ease access to their information. He said the ministry hopes the factory owners would provide it with the correct and accurate data and information to be able to market their products through the ministry’s website and provide its information to the interested parties.
Al Taleb said the forum reflects the increasing importance of the local products’ role in achieving self-suffiency in most of the sectors. The forum is considered an important opportunity for the private and governmental sectors to exchange ideas and visions on developing the local products and increase its competitiveness, and effectively contribute to increasing its contribution in the national economic development generally and in government tenders.
Al Taleb said one of the methods to achieve the above is to sign long term contracts in public tenders from local producers and suppliers which will increase the dependency on local products, will encourage the local competitive product to continuously develop, in addition to making the government entities aware of local products through organizing conferences and workshops to introduce these entities to the Qatari producers and suppliers and their products.
Al Taleb reiterated that the Ministry of Finance previously registered and classified more than 2,000 companies in the contracting, services and supply sectors. He called on all local companies that haven’t registered yet to submit a classification request through the Government Procurement Portal. Al Taleb said this forum is considered the first of its type for local producers, where at least 737 local producers working under the supervision of the Minister of Energy and Trade were invited.
Saleh bin Hamad Al Sharqi, Director-General of Qatar Chamber said in his speech that the forum followed a number of steps taken by the country to support local production, including raising the purchase of local products from 30 percent to 100 percent if they were in line with the adopted standards.
Al Sharqi said that the decisions were a real boost to the local product, adding that they will contribute greatly to enhancing national industries and encouraging Qatari businessmen on establishing new projects.
Khalifa Mohammed Al Buainain, Director of Joint Services Department at the Ministry of Energy and Industry said that the forum represents an opportunity for the business community to discuss the challenges they face in promoting their products locally, stressing that the goal of the ministry was to promote the local products. He said that Qatari industry have made big steps in terms of providing incentives to investors to establish factories and develop the Qatari products that are highly competitive.
