Cabinet approves draft law regulating commercial firms

QNA/Doha

The weekly Cabinet meeting, presided over by HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani, approved a draft law on the issue of commercial companies law and referred it to the Advisory Council.

The draft law includes general provisions for commercial companies with articles on their formation, changes, merging, division, shutting down, and overseeing them. 

The bill particularly handles the activity of public shareholding companies in terms of their establishment, initial public offering, board of directors, determining the remuneration of the board members, the general assembly of the company and its powers, and the company’s capital.

This draft law is being prepared in order to cope with the modern developments in investment and to facilitate the procedures of founding commercial companies through a single-window system that does all the procedures and issues the required licences in the same location where all the entities concerned are represented.

The bill also takes into consideration the international standards according to which countries are ranked in terms of the ease of founding and practising businesses, in order to raise Qatar’s rating and attract more investments.

The cabinet also approved a draft law on the issuance of the State’s fiscal system law after it examined the Advisory Council’s recommendations in this regard.

The provisions of the law would apply to all the government financial units. The Ministry of Finance would be responsible for the management of public funds and the execution of the State’s monetary policy. 

The bill also featured provisions related to the preparation and implementation of the State’s general budget, government accounts, overseeing the implementation of the fiscal system and the State’s final account, borrowing, loaning and investment.

It also defined the fiscal year as the assigned time to implement the state’s general budget, a 12-month period starting from the beginning of January and concluding at the end of December of the same year.

The Cabinet also approved a draft law that abolishes Law No 14 of 1987 on imposing fees to obtain certificates issued by the Ministry of Education, and referred it to the Advisory Council.

The Cabinet also ratified the Minister of Education and Higher Education’s draft decision on determining the fees of some services provided by the Supreme Education Council (SEC). According to the draft decision, a fee of QR10 is to be paid to obtain certificates issued by SEC.

Moreover, the meeting approved the application of Law No 24 of 2002, on retirement and pensions, to Qatari employees of Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC).

Additionally, the Cabinet examined the National Committee for Traffic Safety’s report on its study of the recommendations of the Advisory Council on Doha city’s congestion and the committee’s suggestions in this regard.

It also examined a letter by the Minister of Economy and Commerce on the outcome of the 30th session of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation’s (OIC) Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Co-operation, which was held last month in Istanbul.

The Cabinet reviewed a letter by the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs on the outcome of the 31st session of the GCC council for ministers of development and social affairs and the GCC council for ministers of labour, which took place last month in Kuwait.