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QFC Discusses FDI Opportunities at Davos 2020
Doha, Qatar
The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), one of the world's leading and fastest growing onshore business and financial centres, recently participated in the special briefing entitled "The Year Ahead: Spotlight on FDI", held on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The event, organised by Bloomberg and sponsored by QFC, focused on the considerable FDI flows around the world, which exceed US $1 trillion annually, and shed light on the vigorous competition among countries to attract and increase their shares of foreign direct investments. The summit discussion delved into the ongoing quest of trade and governmental entities to offer bundles of incentives and benefits to increase their competitiveness over peers, while addressing the investments trends.
During the briefing, Yousuf Mohamed Al-Jaida, Chief Executive Officer, QFC sat on a panel entitled 'Smart and Sustainable Economies: Seizing the FDI Opportunities' alongside other senior-level panellists; Claudio Facchin, President, PowerGrids, ABB; Dev Sanyal, Chief Executive, Alternative Energy and Executive Vice President, Regions, BP; and Lex Greensill, CEO, Greensill. During the session, the panellists tackled various pressing issues around the capital inflow, benefits lured from international investments on social, economic and environmental fronts, and the identification of trends shaping FDI decisions.
Yousuf Mohamed Al-Jaida, Chief Executive Officer, QFC Authority,
Creating an infrastructure to enable an efficient business environment and introducing regulatory amendments are indispensable in attracting FDI into Qatar and this is what we have been doing over the past two years. Moreover, at the QFC we have a legal environment that operates under the English common law, with a tax system in accordance to the international best practices in addition to our own court system.
Al-Jaida praised Qatar's ground-breaking amendments and reforms to create a competitive business environment and referred to few examples, including easing of visa process as well as the business registration process from a two months' process to an overnight one, in addition to the transformation from a protected foreign ownership regime to a 100% foreign ownership in certain sectors.
In addition, Yousuf Mohamed Al-Jaida, CEO of the Qatar Financial Centre, also sat on a panel entitled 'Perspectives from Qatar and Russia; Investment Trends in Emerging Markets' as a key speaker, alongside Sheikh Ali AlWaleed Al-Thani, Chief Executive Officer, IPAQ and Saud Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah, Deputy Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and senior Russian representatives. Organised by the Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar (IPAQ) in collaboration with Roscongress, the panel addressed the opportunities and challenges for both global investors and the emerging markets they engage.
