Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani addressing the businessmen in New Delhi yesterday.
Announcing the establishment of Qatar-India Business Council for private sector, Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani yesterday said that the common grounds between Qatar and India represented a solid platform for the development and promotion of economic and trade relations between the two countries.
“Qatar will continue its efforts to enhance the business environment and open the way for local and foreign investments and increase private sector participation in the implementation of major development projects,” the Prime Minister said, while addressing a working dinner with businessmen in Indian capital yesterday.
Expressing satisfaction over “good growth rate” of Qatar despite lower oil and gas prices during the past two years, he said it was the result of efforts to diversify economic activity and increase the efficiency of spending. “The Republic of India is one among the top five trading partners of the State of Qatar, with a trade exchange of more than $10bn.”
He said hat Qatar was currently working on projects at a total cost exceeding $100bn. “It is also expected to sign contracts for new projects at a cost of $12bn in 2017.”
There are several opportunities that "we invite you to exploit in order to enhance economic cooperation and investments between Qatar and India in the coming phase."
The Prime Minister stressed that the State of Qatar enjoyed 14th place among 140 countries on the Global Competitive Index of the World Economic Forum.
He said that Indian community working in the State of Qatar was the largest foreign community in the country and enjoy all the ways of care and attention and has an important role and contributions in the process of economic development.
The Prime Minister also pointed out that most of the trade in Qatar's exports to India was based on liquefied natural gas. "We are striving to raise the volume these exports to meet the needs of India's growing power."
"The State of Qatar under the wise leadership of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani adopted this approach and this approach has strengthened recently by a wide range of initiatives to develop the business environment through the development of cooperation between public and private sectors and to provide support for the private sector to increase its role in various economic sectors, " he added.
He said among those initiatives new facilities were announced like easing work visa procedures and granting tourist visas to nationals of a number of countries including India.
