Doha, Qatar: Qatar and Azerbaijan are investing in innovation to build resilient and future-ready digital economies. Both countries are redefining their economies through focused investment in technology, talent, and innovation.

Talking to The Peninsula in an interview Tugra Musayeva , Chief Innovation Officer of PASHA Holding (a leading investment company and the largest asset manager in Azerbaijan whose portfolio diversifies across financial and non-financial arms) highlighted how the public-private collaboration can help both countries to emerge as regional digital hubs.

“We see Qatar as a huge untapped market in terms of the fintech, property tech, insurtech solutions and that is where we have a lot of expertise. We have been doing a lot of integration with our portfolio companies and we do see a lot of potential in terms of expanding our startups, companies to this market and soft landing them here. So we actually could identify this as a huge potential,” Musayeva said.

“We share the same very challenges on organisational, institutional level and at some points we have what to offer in terms of the technology, in terms of the development. Qatari companies have an edge and exchanging this knowledge and expertise on one hand and on the other hand supporting the market access and soft landing of our companies and startups will do a lot of benefit,” she added.

Speaking about participation in the panel session during the recently held Web Summit Qatar 2026, she noted that the discussion dealt with what is the next big thing for the region, how companies and the government can collaborate, and the challenges being faced and how to work on them.

Regarding the similarities between Qatar and Azerbaijan Musayeva pointed out “We see, of course, it’s the rush to develop the human talent on one hand and infrastructure on the other hand, to make the transition from resource-rich to the knowledge-led economy, I believe this unites us. Also, understanding how critical is the infrastructure and then building the necessary infrastructure, but at the same time thinking about how that can be transformed in capacity building and knowledge generation which is another thing that is uniting us.”

“I believe both countries are trying to find their way out of that. And from this perspective, how government can work with the private sector on one hand, how the talent can be built, and infrastructure can be created, and capital can be allocated. All these should be working together to be aligned to deliver the results.” she added.

Musayeva stressed that the collaboration between private and public sector is critical because if all the initiatives are led by the government only, that will not yield the results.

The corporate player should be the critical part of this infrastructure by hiring and training the talent, allocating the capital through VC funds, launching Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) through becoming clients to startups. “That’s what we do in Pasha Holding and where we see a lot of value to the ecosystem, not only passively sponsoring educational programmes and different projects that might bring results, but also becoming an active player of the ecosystem itself. So that’s the fastest way to yield the results,” she said.

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