HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada has underscored the importance of free enterprise and its role in spurring economic growth.
He was speaking after opening the "Entrepreneurship in Economic Development Forum" in Doha yesterday.
Al-Sada explained that free enterprise creates a positive effect on a country's economic activity, private sector partnership, and community growth.
"Entrepreneurship plays a very important role in Qatar and other Gulf states in the expansion of economic activity, in general, and the activity and the role of the private sector, in particular. It will expand the economic base through what it may lead to the development of new activities, whether products or services, in addition to establishing institutions and creating partnerships, alliances and joint ventures."
Al-Sada was instrumental in the staging of the forum, which was organised by Qatar University (QU) in collaboration with Interactive Business Network (IBN). The two-day forum, which was sponsored by Qatar Petroleum (QP), gathered more than 500 international experts in education, finance and government as keynote speakers.
Al-Sada said, "The Entrepreneurship in Economic Development Forum is of particular importance to the Gulf States at this stage, characterised by the growing priority of diversifying their economies, which requires increased reliance on the private sector and private initiatives, and thus supporting and encouraging entrepreneurship. It may also contribute to the increase in the movement of investment, creating new investment opportunities and guiding investment spending towards new areas that contribute to improving the effectiveness of the production base," al-Sada said.
Also attending the event was QU president Professor Sheikha al-Missned, who stressed the importance of entrepreneurship in economic development and in the business movement, investment, innovation, technological, economic, social and even cultural development."
Sheikh Mohammed bin Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani, chairman of the Qatari Businessmen Association, said in his speech that "the State of Qatar and the countries of the Gulf in general have made great progress during the last one or two decades in terms of modernisation and expansion of its basic and social infrastructure, as well as in the development of the investment environment and providing all means of support for private sector activity, including the promotion of foreign investment."
Qatar Development Bank CEO Abdulaziz bin Nasser al-Khalifa also highlighted the role of entrepreneurship and said it "plays a pivotal and important role in achieving economic development steadily. The best example of this is the modern economies or so-called leading economies."
"Qatar is moving steadily toward the development of a thriving private sector and nurturing a new generation of entrepreneurs. For us, that is a strategic priority and a substantial element of Qatar National Vision 2030. More specifically, it is very important mission that we aspire in Qatar Development Bank to achieve," al-Khalifa said.
He added that "any observer of entrepreneurship in the Arab world would undoubtedly know that Qatar today is one of the biggest supporters of entrepreneurship and the private sector."
QP also opened an exhibition on the sidelines of the event to showcase its extensive operations in the oil and gas industr
© Gulf Times 2014
