Qatar and Slovenia to boost economic ties

DOHA: The Minister of Economy and Commerce H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani has stressed the need for enhancing economic relations between Qatar and the Republic of Slovenia. The Minister said that the two countries will look to expand trade volume and prioritise investments in fields that would help further boost the economies of both the countries.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim was speaking at the first session of the Qatari-Slovenian joint committee on economic and commercial cooperation yesterday in Slovenian capital city Ljubljana yesterday.

The Minister met with the President of the Republic of Slovenia Borut Pahor. Sheikh Ahmed also met with Slovenian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec and Minister of Economic Development and Technology Zdravko Pocivalsek.

During the meetings both sides reviewed bilateral relations between the two friendly countries and ways of enhancing them along with aspects of joint cooperation especially in economic trade and investment areas. Both the countires exchanged views and discussed aspects of cooperation to promote economic trade and investment relations between the two countries.

Meanwhile the Qatari Minister along with Erjavec co-chaired the meeting of the first session of the Qatari-Slovenian joint committee on economic and commercial cooperation which was held in Ljubljana. The two-day meeting discussed bilateral cooperation in different sectors of the economies.

During the meeting Sheikh Ahmed said the Qatari-Slovenian cooperation is showing promising future as there are ample of untapped potential and capabilities in both sides.

The combined value of bilateral trade jumped to QR82.4m in 2015 from QR45.2 in 2013 witnessing a sharp increase of over 82 percent within two years. He emphasised that more efforts are required to expand the volume of bilateral trade and cooperation by establishing partnership in different promising sectors of both the economies and diversifying the areas of trade exchange.

The Minister noted that industry chambers of both the countries can play big role to encourage private sector businesses to establishing strategic partnership for mutual interests.

During his speech Sheikh Ahmed also highlighted Qatar’s experience and efforts towards achieving economic diversification to become a sustainable and knowledge-based society. He also pointed out that Qatar has issued and amended several laws and legislations as part of its efforts to improve ‘the ease of doing business’ in Qatar with an aim at encouraging trade and investment.

He added that Qatar has also taken initiative with regard to commercial arbitration to protect the interests of local and foreign investors and businesses. The Minister invited experts business leaders and other stakeholders to come out with productive ideas suggestion and recommendations to turn the first session of the meeting a great success.

During the meeting they discussed a host of areas of cooperation which included trade investment transport and communication energy and industry small and medium entreprises agriculture infrastructure and construction sector. And both sides agreed to cooperate to boosting the volume of bilateral trade and investments.

The Peninsula