Since the imposition of blockade in June last year, Qatar has made a remarkable progress in diversifying its economy, increasing domestic production and attracting foreign investments from around the globe thanks to timely decisions taken by the wise leadership of the country.
All judicious measures taken in post-siege scenario to achieve self-sufficiency and promote self reliance have started bearing fruits.
“We have 98 new plants that came into actual production compared to 56 plants in the year before the unjustified blockade, registering a growth of approximately 80 percent on year-on- year basis,” Minister of Energy and Industry, H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, has said.
To encourage businessmen of the country, Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani has honoured a number of owners and representatives of the factories the other day who expanded their industrial activity after the unjust siege.
Prime Minister also inaugurated Qatar industrial portal, an interactive portal of strategic importance in industrial planning that aims at enabling decision-makers and investors to make appropriate decisions for their different projects. H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada said that Qatar recorded a sharp jump of about 80 percent in the number of new industrial plants which had started production after siege, compared to previous year.
Dr Al Sada noted that the other facet of the development, in addition to the 80 percent, is that a lot of existing plants increased their scale of production many fold. Some production facilities increased their scale by up to 400 times.
With this sharp rise in the number of new plants, the total number of factories in the country has reached 812. The Minister also highlighted that Qatar now has one of the biggest and most modern Hamad Port which is providing easy access to all over the world.
“In a very short period of time Hamad Port took a substantial portion of the trade in the region. A few months ago it was reported that the port has acquired nearly 27 percent of the regional trade volume, and by now, I am sure it must have grown much more,” the Minister added.
The Minister also announced the launch of the expansion of the Small and Medium Enterprises economic zone to about 825,000 square metres, including infrastructure and basic services needed for industrial projects.
Meanwhile, according to another recent report, Qatar has achieved a significant progress in its efforts to diversify economy in the past five years. The contribution of non-oil sectors in the country’s economy has increased sharply by 23 percent in during 2013-2017 period, showing that the economy is now less dependent on hydrocarbon sector.
The share of non-oil sectors in the country’s nominal GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has risen from 44.3 percent in 2013 to 67.3 percent in 2017, according to Qatar Central Bank data.
