KEY
CONCLUSIONS
Development of investment
partnership between Russia and Qatar currently stands at the highest level
«In the past 3 to 4 years,
there has been a very good relations development from the business and
investment point of view. Qatar’s investment in Russia in the past five years
have totaled around USD 13–14 billion, so we can see that the relationship is building
up,» Al Jaida Yousef Mohammed, Chief Executive Officer, Qatar Financial Center.
«We provide partnership:
this is the kind of covenant that we do to partner with you on the long run,
and we are very committed in terms of furthering our partnerships,» Al Thani
Ali Alwaleed, Chief Executive Officer, Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar.
Qatar is ready to develop
joint projects with the Russian business community
«In the past two years we
have seen a handful of Russian companies that established their presence in
Qatar. One of them is VTB; they established a bank in Qatar. These are the
types of investment we like to see,» Al Jaida Yousef Mohammed, Chief Executive
Officer, Qatar Financial Center.
PROBLEMS
Challenges to development of
a comfortable environment for doing business
«In 2010, it was announced
that Qatar would host the FIFA World Cup. And starting from that time we have
been focusing on so-called soft reforms to ease doing business. It is the most
challenging thing,» Al Attiyah Saud Abdullah, Deputy Undersecretary for
Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance of Qatar.
«Russia and Qatar, we share
similar challenges. Soft advantages are much more difficult to build, from the
ease of doing business to the safety of investment,» Arkady Dvorkovich,
Chairman, Skolkovo Foundation.
Quality indicators of
investment activity need improvement
«We are not looking into
quantities of foreign direct investment. But we are really looking into
clusters and attracting quality foreign direct investment. And by quality, I
mean attracting know-how, attracting high-skilled labour, and transfer of
knowledge <...>, driving investment into sectors other
than the oil and gas industry,» Al Thani Ali Alwaleed, Chief Executive Officer,
Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar.
Between Russian and Qatari
business communities, the awareness of each other’s potential is low
«Many Russians want to get
quite a small investment ranging from 1 to 5 million US dollars into their
business. This is obviously not something that the Qatar Investment Authority
would be interested in. In many cases, Russian investors simply do not think
about Qatar as the destination for their wealth,» Aleksei Potemkin, Founder and
Chief Executive Officer, Moscow Policy Group.
Opportunities for fintech
development in the two countries are limited due to market size
«Financial companies are
natural leaders in technological development. The path of fintech would be
useful for both Russia and Qatar, but the market size is crucial. We need to
have a bigger market for our joint investments,» Arkady Dvorkovich, Chairman,
Skolkovo Foundation.
«One of the main challenges
is the market size in Russia and in Qatar,» Al Thani Ali Alwaleed, Chief
Executive Officer, Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar.
SOLUTIONS
Creating conditions to ease
doing business
«We are now focusing on the
ease of doing business. We recently established the Investment Promotion
Agency» Al Attiyah Saud Abdullah, Deputy Undersecretary for Economic Affairs,
Ministry of Finance of Qatar.
«Establishing communication
between business communities. I believe the Roscongress Foundation and the
Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar could be a great help here,» Aleksei
Potemkin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Moscow Policy Group.
«One of the solutions is a kind of a passporting regime that could allow immediate market access and provide startups and venture companies with the room to grow. Discussion on this could be taken further, especially using the platform between the Investment Promotion Agency and Roscongress, and we could see how we could help Qatari and Russians startups cross-migrate and open new markets for them to grow,» Al Thani Ali Alwaleed, Chief Executive Officer, Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar.
Creating a joint venture
fund to develop small and medium-sized businesses
«We can think of building up
a venture fund which would invest into small-scale businesses. And the money
should come from both sides. That could help the development of small
business,» Aleksei Potemkin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Moscow Policy
Group.
«We can come up with an idea
of how we can work jointly between Qatar and Russia, especially in the field of
SMEs. Venture capital fund might be a good idea,» Al Attiyah Saud Abdullah,
Deputy Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance of Qatar.
«I would refine the idea of
a venture fund. I think we should do it jointly with our leading companies,
such as VTB, Sberbank,» Arkady Dvorkovich, Chairman, Skolkovo Foundation.
Joint development of fintech
«Global growth of fintech is
a major opportunity. Technologies from Russia, China and the USA are the
world’s leading in the fintech sector. And we should consider fintech in
Islamic countries: we have 1.5 billion consumers in countries around Qatar. Two
million people in Qatar is not enough to make fintech profitable. We must look
at the entire region and develop some kind of a unified model,» Al Attiyah Saud
Abdullah, Deputy Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance of
Qatar.
Synergy in digital
technology
«We have a number of
partnerships, primarily with Roscongress and several other organizations. We
exchange best practices, especially those related to the development of high
tech. And when we talk about 2 trillion in direct investments, we understand
that competition is very high,» Al Thani Ali Alwaleed, Chief Executive Officer,
Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar.
«As we pass through the same
challenges, we have successful investment stories, both in Qatar and in Russia,
based on diversification agenda. We have good technologies in certain areas
like artificial intelligence, big data analysis. Skolkovo has its own
innovation agenda, such as smart city technologies, especially in the context
of preparation for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Together we can offer those
solutions, backed by financial resources that our countries have together,»
Arkady Dvorkovich, Chairman, Skolkovo Foundation.
«The area where we see some synergies is in digital. Qatar has a unique experience in terms of smart city. We have the first two greenfield smart city projects, which are built from the ground up, and so many software applications that could be developed on top of that. We could share our experience and incorporate some of the Russian technologies, and provide the platform of Qatari greenfield smart city projects. We are looking at the Russian experience in some of the technological solutions for the World Cup,» Al Thani Ali Alwaleed, Chief Executive Officer, Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar.
Cooperation in real economy
and social sphere
«Apart from the
technological sector, we also have a lot of opportunity in agriculture and food
security,» Aleksei Potemkin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Moscow Policy
Group.
«We have some health
technologies, some agricultural technologies that Russia produced in the past
few years. Applying those technologies in the areas where we had no experience
before together with Qatar would be most profitable and economically
sustainable over the long period of time,» Arkady Dvorkovich, Chairman,
Skolkovo Foundation.
For more information, visit
the Roscongress Foundation’s Information and Analytical System at roscongress.org.
