Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani addressing a ministerial meeting on the National Development Strategy (2017-2022) at the Four Seasons Hotel yesterday.
Doha: The Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani said yesterday that the second National Development Strategy (2017-2022), currently under preparation, should take into account ways to develop business environment in order to stimulate the real participation of private sector and direct it towards high-efficiency sectors.
Addressing a ministerial meeting on a draft National Development Strategy (2017 - 2022) at the Four Seasons Hotel yesterday, the Prime Minister stressed the need to focus on increasing the efficiency of public spending, and the application of the principle of cost-effectiveness in all programs and projects contained in the second national development strategy.
The Prime Minister instructed to make the draft available for community dialogue by involving the private sector and civil society organisations and citizens with special expertise.
The Prime Minister underlined the need for ensuring coherence and compatibility between the proposed programmes and projects in the second national development strategy (2017-2022 ) on the one hand, and the general plans for government projects during the upcoming period on the other hand, pointing to the need for focusing all efforts to support sustainability projects and realise Qatar National Vision 2030.
He called for encouraging local and foreign investment through the development of integrated legislative framework and bridging some legal gaps, in addition to the development of a clear legislative framework for the private sector's participation in development projects, including the law on build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts.
The Premier instructed to speed up the development of infrastructure in the industrial and logistics zones to support the diversification of the economic activity of small and medium enterprises, and support the transition to a knowledge-based economy by focusing on the development of education and training to increase the efficiency and skills of Qatari nationals.
The Prime Minister also directed all ministries and other governmental bodies to prepare their medium-term strategic plans and annual output plans that work on the implementation of the outcomes and the goals of the national development strategy.
He stressed the importance of acting quickly to raise government performance to keep up with changes taking place in the state, as well as on the need to speed up the completion of the e-government projects and make available a greater number of services through the electronic system to speed up the completion of transactions.
The Prime Minister concluded his speech by underlining the importance of creating a clear and integrated national framework to monitor the implementation of the national development strategy 2017 - 2022 to make regular reports on all supervision levels in the state in order to achieve effective implementation of the strategy, and provide urgent solutions to all the obstacles as they arise, along with a clear definition of roles and responsibilities and the grounds for accountability in the case of default.
Minister of Development Planning and Statistics H E Dr Saleh Mohamed Salem Al Nabit also addressed the gathering and Dr Ibrahim Ibrahim, Economic Adviser at Emiri Diwan gave a presentation on the challenges of the second national strategy 2017-22.
