WASHINGTON, 21 March 2004 — Qatar’s minister of economy and finance has big plans for his country: he envisions Qatar becoming “part of the global economy with a robust private sector,” and says his role — he’s been in office only a few months — is to make Qatar’s economy “more resilient”.

Signing TIFA, the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, on Friday in Washington, will lead Qatar to a free trade zone agreement with the US and bring in investors for “non-oil and non-gas business,” said Sheikh Muhammad Al-Thani.

Qatar has relied too heavily on energy in the past, and suffered a “major crisis when oil prices fell in 1999,” Al- Thani told American businessmen and investors during a lunch sponsored by the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce prior to the TIFA signing. “We are reinvesting Qatar’s annual GDP ($20 billion) into the economy, because we want Qatar to offer the most competitive business climate in the Middle East. And we expect to double our GDP within 4-6 years.”

Putting words into action, the country has worked to establish policies aimed at luring investors and has used most of its natural gas revenues to pay its foreign debt. In 2002, the country’s per capita GDP was estimated at $28,518, offering a more robust income than some of its larger neighbors.

One of the wealthiest of the Gulf economies and one of the world’s fastest growing, “Qatar is ready for foreign investment and has actively reformed investment laws and gives great incentives to the international business community,” said Bader Omar Al-Dafa, Qatar’s ambassador to Washington. “Qatar allows foreign investors to own 100 percent of a company in areas such as tourism, health, industry, education and agriculture.”

Already a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Qatar has moved to liberalize its market to order to expand opportunities for foreign investment. The government is aggressively pursuing plans to privatize more services and industries over the next five years, aimed at providing significant opportunities for foreign investors. Heeding the call, Cornell University has set up a satellite medical college in Qatar, designed to equal Cornell’s medical school in Ithaca, New York. The investment law also exempts foreign companies from paying taxes for ten years and allows the tariff-free importation of equipment and materials not readily available in the country.

“Qatar’s economy is expanding in very carefully managed measures,” Ambassador Maureen Quinn, US ambassador to Qatar, told the businessmen. “Its new constitution was approved last spring and its reforms provide a real framework.” Currently, 10 TIFA agreements have been signed in the Arab world. Algeria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia “are in the process of coming on board,” said Catherine Novelli, the assistant US trade representative for Europe and the Mediterranean. TIFA establishes formal bilateral dialogues, “aimed at creating a better understanding of each other’s economies, solving practical problems and prioritizing issues,” said Novelli.