World Cup to pace Qatar international tourism revenue by 116% in 2022, says Sheikh Mohamed

The FIFA World Cup will help Qatar’s revenues from global tourism to grow more than 116% year-on-year to QR67bn in 2022, according to the Minister of Commerce and Industry HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad bin Qassim al-Thani.
“It is estimated that the FIFA World Cup will attract more than 1mn visitors, thus leading to projected international tourism revenues of QR67bn in 2022 compared to QR31bn in 2021,” the minister said in an interview to The Business Year’s World Cup special edition, which was unveiled yesterday.
The projects implemented within the framework of organising and hosting the FIFA World Cup support the state’s journey towards achieving its strategic and development goals in the coming years, he said, adding the hosting of the FIFA World Cup has had a vital, significant role in promoting economic growth and diversification in the nation.
Since the beginning of this journey, Qatar has been keen to launch initiatives that support the urban planning and economic diversification sectors, he said.
“This global event will contribute positively to Qatar’s economic landscape by attracting investments and ensuring the economic growth of a number of vital sectors such as trade and tourism, as well as promoting the expansion of sports’ contribution to the economic sector,” according to him.
As part of strengthening the diversification strategy, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is also working on strategies to provide “significant” incentives to enhance investments in the manufacturing sector, HE Sheikh Mohamed highlighted.
“The Ministry of Commerce and Industry seeks to diversify income sources and increase the real value added from priority sectors, especially non-oil ones, as well as raise Qatar’s non-oil exports in 2022,” he said.
The ministry is currently working to remove all obstacles to Qatar’s business environment and to develop it further as well as provide significant incentives to enhance investment in the manufacturing sector, whose share in gross domestic product (GDP) has increased to about 66% by the end of 2020 compared to 52% in 2018.
“Additionally, the ministry seeks consolidating the role of the private sector in achieving the economic prosperity of Qatar,” he said.
Highlighting that the manufacturing sector was among the fastest to recover, he said based on these positive indications, “we expect the manufacturing sector’s growth and momentum to be sustained in the coming years.”
As part of its efforts to support the industrial sector and enhance its contribution to the national economy, the ministry created Qatar’s manufacturing sector strategy (2018-22) to layout a roadmap for the manufacturing industries up until 2030.
In this regard, he cited the government’s efforts to attract major international companies to Qatar to invest in “strategic” manufacturing sub-sectors such as plastics products, 3D printing, pharmaceuticals and extreme environment infrastructure solutions.