Doha, September 24 (QNA) – The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MOCI) Wednesday organized the Public-Private Dialogue Forum, attended by a number of senior officials and representatives from the private sector. The forum aimed to discuss key challenges facing the business environment and work toward adopting practical, actionable solutions and joint initiatives.

In his opening remarks, HE MOCI’s Undersecretary Mohammed bin Hassan Al Malki stated that the forum’s first edition reflects the Ministry’s commitment to establishing direct and regular communication channels with its private sector partners to address challenges, listen to their views and suggestions, and reach practical recommendations that contribute to overcoming these challenges in line with economic development priorities and enhancing transparency and trust between both sectors.

His Excellency pointed out that Qatar’s economy is witnessing rapid growth and increasing investment momentum within a clear vision to achieve economic diversification. He noted that the government is working to empower the private sector to lead growth in the coming phase, in alignment with the Third National Development Strategy and Qatar National Vision 2030.

He further explained that the country has made significant strides in improving the business environment through legislative and regulatory reforms and innovative digital solutions that facilitate business establishment. These efforts have positively impacted Qatar’s performance in various international indicators, placing it ninth in the Global Competitiveness Index and, for the first time, among the top 10 in the Global Competitiveness Report for 2025. Qatar also advanced to fifth globally in the Business Environment Efficiency Index for 2025.

His Excellency highlighted that the Ministry, in cooperation with its partners in government entities and the private sector, is working to create a business environment based on transparency, competitiveness, and efficiency.

This includes streamlining procedures and enhancing services, such as automatically issuing tax numbers upon commercial registration and facilitating labor recruitment approvals. The scope of electronic services has expanded through the single window platform, with 95 percent of services now available online.

A multilingual platform was also launched to ease access for local and international investors to the Qatari market, with over 1,400 activities now open to foreign investment.

He added that the Ministry simplified import procedures by removing the requirement to match commercial activity and implemented the unified customs tariff across the GCC, which helped reduce import costs, expand supply options, and eliminate shipment rejections due to activity mismatch.

The Ministry also introduced industrial incentives, including reduced rental rates for industrial, logistics, and commercial lands, saving the private sector over QAR 100 million annually. Environmental permit procedures were simplified for about 90 percent of industrial activities, enhancing project feasibility, lowering operational costs, and encouraging entrepreneurship in high-value sectors.

His Excellency noted that the Ministry is currently preparing and developing several legislative projects, including a new public-private partnership law to replace the existing one, a law on attracting foreign investment, and a bankruptcy law aligned with international best practices.

He affirmed that the private sector is a key partner in the national development journey, emphasizing that constructive cooperation and integration between government and private entities are essential to overcoming challenges and turning them into opportunities.

He expressed the Ministry’s commitment to holding this forum regularly to achieve ambitious goals.

The forum featured a panel discussion on the business environment, with participation from HE MOCI’s Undersecretary Mohammed bin Hassan Al Malki; HE Undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice Saeed bin Abdullah Al Suwaidi; and HE Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labor (MOL) Sheikha Najwa bint Abdulrahman Al-Thani.

The panelists discussed key achievements and regulatory updates that have facilitated the business environment and supported the private sector.

During the session, HE the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MOCI) reiterated the Ministry’s ongoing implementation of initiatives aimed at simplifying business establishment and operations and creating an attractive investment climate.

These initiatives include comprehensive establishment upon commercial registration, automatic issuance of tax cards and numbers, labor recruitment approvals, and a trade name selection service.

These measures have reduced establishment time, minimized the number of government entities involved, enabled pre-compliance with trade name conditions, and allowed tracking of company registration requests.

He also referred to the development of the commercial activity classification system by transitioning to ISIC 4.0 and activating the Unified Economic Registry Data Platform for search and retrieval.

This enables alignment with international commercial classifications, facilitates comparisons and studies, improves data quality to support policies and development plans, reduces time for company data verification, and opens new or complementary investment opportunities locally and internationally.

MOCI’s Assistant Undersecretary for Industry and Business Development Affairs Saleh Majid Al Khulaifi delivered a presentation highlighting the Ministry’s key initiatives to strengthen partnership with the private sector. These include forming sectoral committees covering industry, trade, logistics, health, and technology to monitor challenges in each sector and propose suitable solutions. He noted that the Roundtable project launched by the Ministry has already produced several implemented solutions, with others under study and development.

In the same context, Qatar Chamber participated in the Public-Private Dialogue Forum. Board Member of the Chamber Engineer Ali bin Abdul Latif Al Misned stated during the opening session that dialogue between the public and private sectors is crucial for developing the private sector, emphasizing the need to define the term business environment improvement.

The forum concluded with discussion sessions by the Business Environment Development Committees, with participation from sectoral committee representatives and private sector stakeholders in industry, trade, logistics, health, and technology.

The sessions featured exchanges of views and discussions on challenges and proposed solutions to produce practical outcomes that support the forum’s objectives. (QNA)