Qatar’s QDB shepherds firms to Dubai to help diversify economy

Qatar and the UAE are making new efforts to strengthen commercial ties with shared interest in shifting their economies away from dependence on oil and gas.

Khalid Al-Mana, Qatar Development Bank’s Vice President of Enterprise Development, brought executives from 25 companies – including Doha Cables, Delta Corp., Dderve, Q Ceramic and Doha Plastic – on a relation-building trade mission to Dubai this week. Among the group were firms with interests ranging from artificial intelligence and sports technology to construction, steel and food.

In an interview with The Circuit, Al-Mana highlights Qatar’s strategic focus on economic diversification. QDB is making particular efforts to support small and medium-sized businesses, or SMEs, promoting exports and facilitating greater activity by Qatari companies in global markets. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How does QDB envision its role evolving in the next decade?
Qatar Development Bank is a government institution that was established in 1997. The purpose of the bank is to promote the private sector and entrepreneurship in the country outside of the oil and gas market. As you know, Qatar is very successful in developing its oil and gas industry and markets worldwide. However, with this comes the challenge of diversification, and it’s the role of the bank to create a more diverse economy.

How does the bank address the finance challenges businesses are facing?

At the bank, we have several arms. One of the arms, of course, is exports and we have a dedicated exports department called Tasdeer. In this department, we look at both developing SMEs through workshops and through our “Go Global” accelerator, which is an award-winning accelerator dedicated to helping local industries export to international markets.

It involves giving them a tool kit for their target markets. So we would try to identify the target market for each SME, and we would develop a tool kit for them to try to penetrate these markets, which goes all the way down to identifying the buyers in these markets so they can deal-make for their exports. This is under the development arm for exports.

In the past, under the finance arm for exports, we were doing only short-term lending through credit insurance and through raw material and bill discounting financing. However, just about a month or two ago, we launched a variety of new products and we have a lot of hopes for these new products to support our private sector and gain more global presence.

What strategies has QDB implemented to enhance Qatar’s global competitiveness?

These products are in line with what leading export credit agencies offer in other countries, such as buyer credit. So we would finance the buyers of Qatari goods and services, and as well, we would provide project finance for Qatari contractors who are seeking to do contracting abroad. Our EPC contractors now have the ability to approach us at Qatar Development Bank and get financing for the projects that they are awarded in foreign countries.

How do you help Qatari companies raise money for international activities?

There are products such as international finance where a Qatari company would like to have a presence in an international market. They would like to either open a branch or extend their businesses in other countries. We now have the ability to finance Qatari companies to expand into international geographies. All these were not available in the past, but currently, they are available with QDB.