Qatar is in a celebration mode. The achievements made by the State of Qatar in education, sustainable energy, economic development, sports, enhancing the role and status of women, giant leap in the labour reforms and in arts heritage are all well accepted by the world around.
Qatar has invested mainly in its people, and in its infrastructure based on Qatar National Vision 2030, aiming to transform the economy into a knowledge-based one. Despite the ongoing siege, the successes achieved by Qatar in all its spheres especially in economy are through the far-sighted approach by its wise leadership and various diversification programmes. The siege did not affect Qatar in any ways. It’s a blessing in disguise and it withstood all efforts by the siege countries to denounce this great nation’s sovereignty.
As everyone knows, Qatar’s economy is getting stronger and becoming more resilient. This was reflected when Minister of Commerce and Industry H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari recently said that the State of Qatar has adopted a package of economic policies that have placed its economy at advanced rankings in different levels compared to the economies of countries around the world, as the country recorded the lowest rate of inflation in the world, with advanced levels of capital availability and reduced tax burdens.
Qatar is working to make the non-oil sector essential to the growth of its economy. The contribution of the non-oil sector in the country’s economy amounted to about 52 percent in 2017. The total value of Qatar’s non-oil exports in 2017 was QR18.1bn distributed to about 66 countries. Qatar’s non-oil exports registered a strong growth of 13.3 percent during November 2018 with the combined value reaching at QR2.24bn, compared to QR1.98bn recorded in October 2018 and compared to QR1.8bn for the corresponding month last year, recording growth percentage of 24.7 percent.
The monthly report of the Qatar Chamber on foreign trade pointed to the trend of non-oil exports to 67 countries during November 2018 compared to 61 countries during October, with 13 Arab countries, including the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and 15 European countries including Turkey and 20 Asian countries except for the Arab countries and 13 African countries except for the Arab countries and five North and South American countries, as well as Australia.
This shows that the uptrend continues despite the bloackade. The World Bank forecasts that Qatar’s economy is growing by 2.8 percent in 2018 and will see a growth of 3 percent and above by 2020, the highest of its kind in the region.
All the recent data shows that Qatar is at an important historical stage in the process of sustainable development through its vision 2030, which aims to reduce dependence on oil and gas and the production of knowledge-based economic policies. Its balanced economic policies and its distinguished relations with various countries of the world, has been able to overcome the siege imposed on it for about a year and a half. Qatar has dealt with the crisis with high professionalism, and that’s giving the dividends now.
