The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) has participated in the special briefing entitled “The Year Ahead: Spotlight on FDI”, held on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The event, organised by Bloomberg and sponsored by the QFC, focused on the considerable foreign direct investment flows around the world, which exceed $1tn annually, and shed light on the vigorous competition among countries to attract and increase their shares of FDI.

The summit discussion delved into the ongoing quest of trade and governmental entities to offer bundles of incentives and benefits to increase their competitiveness over peers, while addressing the investments trends.

“Creating an infrastructure to enable an efficient business environment and introducing regulatory amendments are indispensable in attracting FDI into Qatar and this is what we have been doing over the past two years," said QFC Authority chief executive Yousuf Mohamed al-Jaida.

During the briefing, al-Jaida sat on a panel "Smart and Sustainable Economies: Seizing the FDI Opportunities" alongside other senior-level panellists; Claudio Facchin, president, PowerGrids, ABB; Dev Sanyal, chief executive, Alternative Energy and executive vice president, Regions, BP; and Lex Greensill, chief executive, Greensill.

During the session, the panellists tackled various pressing issues around the capital inflow, benefits lured from international investments on social, economic and environmental fronts, and the identification of trends shaping FDI decisions.

Al-Jaida highlighted Qatar’s ground-breaking amendments and reforms to create a competitive business environment and referred to few examples, including easing of visa process as well as the business registration process from a two months’ process to an overnight one, in addition to the transformation from a protected foreign ownership regime to a 100% foreign ownership in certain sectors.

He also sat on a panel "Perspectives from Qatar and Russia; Investment Trends in Emerging Markets" as a key speaker, alongside Sheikh Ali al-Waleed al-Thani, chief executive, IPAQ (the Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar) and Saud bin Abdullah al-Attiyah, deputy undersecretary for Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and senior Russian representatives.

Organised by IPAQ in collaboration with Roscongress, the panel addressed the opportunities and challenges for both global investors and the emerging markets they engage.


Related Story