Nearly 100,000 Qataris visited the UK in 2019, further strengthening bilateral relations in the areas of education and tourism, British ambassador Ajay Sharma has said.
The envoy, whose tenure as UK ambassador to Qatar will end soon after serving four years, was addressing a press conference Sunday to highlight the two countries’ deep-rooted relationship.
“Just think about the size of the (Qatar) population and think about almost 100,000 visits last year, so that just shows the extraordinary closeness that people have when they think about the UK here in Qatar,” he noted.
Apart from being a preferred and favourite holiday haven for Qataris, it is learnt that the UK remained to be the top destination for Qataris studying overseas.
“I also pleased to say that it is not one way traffic, we have around 25,000 British nationals (who are) residents here, and the number of British nationals visiting Qatar, experiencing Qatar, has grown,” Sharma said.
He noted that a large number of British nationals visited the country to watch the Club World Cup last year.
“People are coming and experiencing Qatar for the first time and realty liking it. We have so many thousands of Liverpool supporters coming here,” the envoy added.
Highlighting Qatar and UK relations, he described the last four years (under his tenure) have been an extremely positive time for the two countries saying that: “What we’ve seen over the last four years is a rediscovery of Qatar by the UK and that has led to a real strengthening of the relationship.”
At the political level, he said there have been so much contact between UK’s Prime Ministers and the Qatari government over the last few years: “Former Prime Minister Theresa May and the current Prime Minister Boris Johnson know Qatar really well.”
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