Board Member of Turkish Presidency Economic Policies to QNA: Qatar's Economic Diversification Made it Adapt to Global Challenges

Istanbul, October 14 (QNA) - Member of the Board of Economic Policies at Presidency of the Republic of Turkey Hakan Yurdakul pointed out Qatar's National Development Strategy that has become based on diversifying the economy and enhancing resources in return for reducing its dependency on oil and gas. In his interview with Qatar News Agency (QNA), Yurdakul said that Qatar's efforts to diversify the economy and provide an adequate administrative and legislative environment for investment have had a positive impact on growth and made its economy more adaptive to various global challenges such as the energy market fluctuations, COVID-19 repercussions, in addition to regional conflicts. He said that the current cooperation between Qatar and Turkey is a role model, as it is based on mutual interest and also reflects Qatar's National Development Strategy, which is based on increasing and diversifying investments. He pointed out that the State of Qatar ranks second in the field of foreign direct investment flows to Turkey, which reached USD 33 billion in 2020. Member of the Board of Economic Policies at Presidency of the Republic of Turkey noted the development of the trade exchange volume, which increased 61 times between the years 2001 and 2002. He stressed that the opportunities for increasing the trade exchange between the two sides are promising, especially in technology-related fields, with the transformation of Qatar's economy from an oil and gas-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. In the same context, Yurdakul said that Turkey has solid ground in the fields of financial, health, and retail technology, as well as the infrastructure related to ICT- related technology. Therefore, Turkey looks forward to Qatar playing more roles in advancing Turkish technology companies amid the country’s digital transformation. The Turkish official also stressed that Turkey does not consider Qatar as an investor only but as a reliable partner in supporting development and relief issues in developing countries, especially those that suffer conflicts in Asia and Africa. He stressed that the Qatari-Turkish Supreme Strategic Committee constitutes an opportunity for coordination between the two countries regarding dealing with various global threats and challenges, especially on the economic level to achieve mutual benefit. He called for governments to focus on increasing their support for the private sector and small and medium-sized enterprises. (QNA)