Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and Qatar-US Business Council participated in a virtual conference on the growing Qatari exports that aim to providing opportunities for US buyers to also explore new opportunities in US markets.
Qatar-US Business Council hosted the conference which was moderated by Managing Director of the Council Mohamed Barakat, and attended by Qatari Commercial Attache to the United States Fahad al-Dosari, along with Stefan Haid and Andreas Bakr from Roland Berger, a global consulting firm.
Addressing the conference, CEO of Qatar Development Bank Abdulaziz bin Nasser al-Khalifa called on US companies to join the co-ordination meetings with Qatari exporters, noting that the United States has been a strong partner to Qatar for many years, and there are diverse business relations between the two countries. Today, after several years of diversification and growth in all sectors, the growing private sector in Qatar is ready for partnership and exchange of experiences with the US market, al-Khalifa added.
The conference aims at introducing the US companies to the co-ordination meetings organised by the export development agency “Tasdeer” to connect companies from around the world to Qatari exporters.
Tasdeer provides support and assistance to entrepreneurs in identifying and creating opportunities in order to deliver Qatari products to international markets. The agency also highlights the capabilities and quality of the Qatari products to the world.
Qatar Development Bank has chosen 27 Qatari companies to participate in the co-ordination meetings, operating in a variety of sectors including chemical products, plastic products, metal products, building materials, health supplies related to the Covid-19 pandemic, industrial products and electronics.
Recent years have witnessed a remarkable development in the economic relations between Qatar and the United States, as the value of trade turnover between the two countries reached nearly $9.4bn in 2019, an increase of 100% compared to 2017.
Many American companies began to rely more on Qatari products, as the value of Qatari exports to the US market reached about $1.6bn in 2018.
These statistics and other international reports, and indeed the achievements made by the export arm of Qatar Development Bank, reflect the tremendous efforts made by Tasdeer.
At the beginning of this year, the agency organised the “Made in Qatar” exhibition in Kuwait, and hosted successful co-ordination meetings through electronic platforms of the private sector companies, in the presence of companies and businessmen from 28 countries.
The agency also organised a workshop to localise supply chains with Qatar Airways. In addition, Qatar obtained unanimous approval to establish a barcode and tracking office for Qatari Products from the GS1, making 630 the international tracking code for products of Qatar, among many other achievements of the agency at the local and international levels.