‘Qatar continues to focus on economic diversification’

Doha, Qatar: Qatar is focusing on its journey towards economic diversification. The four key sectors the country is going to be focusing on are logist...

Doha, Qatar: Qatar is focusing on its journey towards economic diversification. The four key sectors the country is going to be focusing on are logistics, ICT, manufacturing, and tourism, said Minister of Finance H E Ali Ahmed Al Kuwari addressing the Qatar Economic Forum 2024, yesterday.

Leading policymakers shared how they are guiding the region towards a vision of sustainable and inclusive growth, powered by vibrant and diversified economies during a panel discussion entitled ‘Reshaping Middle East Economies’. The session discussed what the countries in the GCC can do for this acceleration to keep going with a view of working towards more inclusive, sustainable growth.

Minister of Finance touched on several fundamental topics, including Qatar's macro-outlook, regional direction (integrations vs. fragmentation), economic vision, plans beyond 2030. He highlighted the ambitious goals set out by the Third National Development Strategy (NDS3), which aims to achieve sustainable economic growth by increasing non-oil growth to 4% annually. Minister Al Kuwari emphasised the crucial role played by this vision phase in achieving this goal, stating that "Through NDS3, the goal is to promote sustainable economic growth, ensuring competitiveness amid a dynamic global environment."

Speaking during a session during the fourth edition of the Qatar Economic Forum under the theme “A World Remade: Navigating the Year of Uncertainty, Minister of Finance highlighted the Qatar National Vision 2030 which has been the economic backbone for the trajectory of Qatari economy and sectors that are going to be driving growth.

Minister Al Kuwari said, “We are embarking in the last phase of our journey toward 2030 vision. When we made the vision there were three phases, the first phase focused on creating national champions – the Qatar Investment Authority, QNB, Ooredoo which helped us to build the brand for the country. In second phase, we invested more than QR300bn in state-of-the-art infrastructure for the country and we had a big event FIFA 2022. So much of our infrastructure was helped to be accelerated for the world cup event.”