Executive director for advisory services Ibrahim al-Mannai said QDB has been working with the Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC) in licensing home-based Qatari businesses.
Al-Mannai also noted that QDB “will be ready” to launch the online platform “in the next two months.”
“There is a large appetite among business owners and based on their response, we are developing an online platform to register all home-based businesses,”
al-Mannai told Gulf Times on the sidelines of QDB’s recently-launched Ramadan Night Market at the Mall of Qatar.
The night market, organised in partnership with the Bedaya Centre for Entrepreneurship and Career Development (Bedaya Centre) and Mall of Qatar, will run until June 16 and showcases a variety of products by home-based Qatari businesses.
Al-Mannai said some of the advantages of registering a home-based business include access to a wide range of funding and access to new and wider markets, whether local or regional, and even international.
“Once a home-based business gets registered, they become a more established organisation and QDB can provide the owner with a wide range of support like loans and access to other types of funding, as well as advisory services and exposure and access to other markets, among others. It will also help the company expand its operations and its workforce,” he said.
Many Qatari home-based businesses market their products over social media sites and mobile apps like Instagram and WhatsApp. But al-Mannai said QDB initiatives like the Ramadan Night Market help home-based businesses expand to wider markets outside the Internet.
“The Ramadan Night Market is actually the second phase, and the third phase would be leading towards opening a shop to become a more established business entity; and this is part of their journey,” he pointed out.
Another advantage of being a registered home-based business, according to Bedaya Centre general manager Reem al-Suwaidi is the opportunity to bring the ‘Made in Qatar’ trademark to global markets.
“We actually have a lot of different startups that have gone global and we now have businesses that are exporting their products to neighbouring Gulf countries,” al-Suwaidi stressed.