More Korean companies to operate in Qatar: envoy

More Korean companies are expected to come to Qatar in the lead up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup and beyond, all aimed at contributing to the country’s development, according to South Korea’s new ambassador, Kim Chang-mo.“After the blockade last year, because of the difficulties from heightened material costs and longer transportation route, the number of Korean companies remains almost unchanged,” the envoy said.Kim stressed that the Qatar government has eased lots of those difficulties with the swift measures, expecting the number of Korean companies to increase further in the near future.He noted that about 20 Korean companies are stationed and operating in Qatar, with majority in the construction and energy sectors.Highlighting Qatar and South Korea’s strong bilateral relations, Kim said Qatar is the number one provider of liquefied natural gas to Korea and “in accumulated figures, it is the 8th largest foreign construction market for Korea too.”“Our two countries have great potential to expand our bilateral co-operation to other areas as well, utilising and sharing our experiences of development in such areas as agriculture, fisheries, education, healthcare, and information and communications technology, among others,” he added.Kim stressed that South Korea is actively co-operating with Qatar in the field of public health and medicine since the agreement signing in 2014, holding medical forums twice in Doha. Doctors from both countries co-operated in exchanging knowledge and experience.He also expressed confidence that bilateral relations between Qatar and South Korea will further deepen if Head of States visit each other’s country in the near future.“I think bilateral exchange of visits at the highest level is not only symbolic of cordial relationship but very conducive to further enhancing bilateral relations between two countries,” the envoy pointed out. “Since our diplomatic ties in 1974, our two countries have exchanged lots of visits at the highest level,” he noted. “The very recent ones were Korean president’s visit to Doha in 2014 and His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani’s visit to Korea in 2015.”After these visits, Kim said the two countries held annual High Level Strategic Co-operation Committee meetings as follow-up measures of the summit meetings. He added that Korea adopted the “Green Growth” as a national strategy for development and hosted Global Green Growth Institute and Green Climate Fund, the two international important organisations in the field of climate change, in Seoul. Qatar adopted ‘National Vision 2030’ as a national strategy for development where environmental development is stressed as one of the four pillars of the vision, Kim said.“We have much room for co-operation in the field of environment and climate change,” the envoy stressed, as he vowed to do exert more effort in expanding the two countries’ bilateral co-operation in this area.