Mohammed Mubarak Al Mansouri
Qatar Development Bank (QDB) has started preparations to host the third edition of the ‘Made at Home’ exhibition, to be held in the fourth quarter of this year, will be bigger both in terms of the number participants and visitors, said a senior official of the agency.
QDB, the state-backed entity, which is responsible for developing and promoting economic diversification by supporting SMEs and micro-businesses in the country, is collaborating with various stakeholders to finanalise the dates of the exhibition.
‘Made at Home’ is an annual event in the country that provides a unique opportunity to home-based businesses to showcase a wide range of products.
“We are preparing to host the ‘Made at Home’ expo for the goods produced at home. It’s an annual event, which will be taking place for the third year in a row. Currently we are in the process of booking the venue and everything related to the event. We will be able to confirm the exact dates soon. But it will be taking place between October and November depending on the availability and many other things,” Mohammed Mubarak Al Mansouri, Manager, Business Localisation Department, QDB, told The Peninsula.
Al Mansouri added: “Under the expo we are taking only home-based product. For that we do some filtration to ensure that they are home-based products and not trading from home. We always look at it that there is value addition in the products that are selected to be showcased at the expo.”
QDB, under its Marketing and Public Relations (PR) services, offers several professional and consultancy services. One of the marketing initiatives includes its ‘Derwazaa’ programme which is dedicated to home-based products. It was launched during the previous edition of the ‘Made at Home’ expo in 2018.
Commenting about the response of the initiative, Al Mansouri said: “Currently we are having some 10 firms under Derwazaa. We did rebranding for them and enhanced their products. We are aiming to have more this year, and we are also seeking to collaborate with some local entities to make it a big success.”
QDB is also working to open stores by the name ‘Derwazaa’ across Qatar to sell and promote home-based products such as food, crafts, incense and other items to make them more popular among Qatari citizens and residents.
“We at QDB are working and collaborating with various government and private entities to support local industries, products and services. We have a lot of dedicated programmes and initiatives, and all of them are having consistency and expansion in terms of participation and response,” noted Al Mansouri.
QDB recently launched the fourth edition of ‘Government Procurement and Contracting Conference & Exhibition’ (Moushtarayat 2019), which will be taking place from March 31 to April 02. This is a major initiative to support local SMEs where they get the chance to engage with government entities to bag business contracts.
Asked about the tentative business opportunities local small and medium businesses are expected to win from the upcoming Moushtarayat 2019, he said it would be premature to provide any number now. “Numbers will be clearer by the end of March, and QDB will host another meeting before that to announce the figures,” he said.
