Spain and Qatar will hold a strategic dialogue sometime towards the end of this year, the Spanish ambassador has said. “Spain and Qatar will hold a strategic dialogue, which is an outcome of the strategic partnership between the two countries. We are working to fix a date for the strategic dialogue and hopefully it will take place sometime before the end of this year. That will be a comprehensive dialogue on various topics, such as politics, economics and social matters,” Spanish envoy Javier Carbajosa Sanchez told Gulf Times.
Ambassador Sanchez was speaking to Gulf Times on the sidelines of the launch of the Qatar Spain Innovation Programme between Qatar Research, Development and Innovation (QRDI) Council and the Spanish Centre for the Development of Technology and Innovation, a joint venture between Qatar and Spain for research, development and innovation.
"We have excellent relations between Qatar and Spain over the past 50 years. We have decided to elevate the rank of our relations to strategic partnership with the visit of the His Highness the Amir last year. The strategic relationship means that we are going to deepen and broaden our collaboration in all fields, especially in the field of innovation and technology,” explained the Spanish envoy.
He continued, “The launch of the Qatar-Spain Innovation Programme aims to fund a number of projects both from Qatar and Spain to address a certain number of common issues, such as health, agriculture, public services, energy, etc. It is a joint endeavour and this is the first time that QRDI is doing something with a foreign partner and we feel extremely responsible about it.”
The envoy said the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Qatar is very active. “We have 67 Spanish firms working here in Qatar, covering almost every economic sector. We had been very active during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, being involved in the construction of the stadiums, the Doha Metro, among others,” he pointed out.
The envoy stressed that Spain is reliable partner of Qatar. “Spain has great expertise in some areas. That can be useful for Qatar in several fields such as agriculture, tourism and environment. We can complement Qatar with several skills, which Qatar already has. We believe that we can be natural partners in some areas of mutual interest,” the ambassador added.
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