DOHA: The Ministry of Economy and Commerce has not been able to properly convey the concept of the proposed farmers’ association to prospective members and investors, says a prominent businessman.
Ahmed Al Khalaf (pictured) said what he understood from media reports was that the association of Qatari farmers would be like the lawyers’ or engineers’ association that would work to help protect the rights of its members.
When told that it would be basically a farmers’ cooperative society and not an association, whose main aim is to make profit by encouraging private sector investment in the agricultural sector, Al Khalaf said he didn’t have a clear idea.
“There is confusion. From what you say, it is clear that the association is going to be much like a shareholding company, a cooperative society.”
Al Khalaf is an active investor in the agricultural sector.
Meanwhile, a cursory look by this newspaper into the memorandum of association of the proposed organisation suggests that it would basically be a cooperative society, with a membership base.
Its capital is not yet decided, but according to the memorandum of association, its shares will each have a nominal value of QR10.
Members, including individuals and companies, will need to subscribe and buy shares. Payments could be made in installments as well.
However, only Qatari individuals and 100 percent Qatari companies could be members of the proposed society.
While Article 1 of the memorandum of association covers the name of the proposed body, Article 2 talks of its aims, which include developing cooperation among members to help boost agricultural production in the country and ensure food security.
The other aim is to boost research and development in the farming sector.
Only farm owners who do not have any other businesses can become members by paying a one-off registration fee of QR500.
The memorandum of association has 55 articles, and Article 10, while suggesting that there would be a capital, says no member would be allowed to own more than 10 percent of capital.
The society will have a board that will approve all memberships except those of the founder-members. Board members would be entitled to payments at the end of the fiscal year subject to approval by the annual general meeting of the society’s members/shareholders.
Article 20 says the society must set up a social services and emergency fund so financial help can be provided to members in distress. A huge corpus is also to be set up so that members could be given loans for agricultural and related activities.
The financial year of the proposed society, requests for whose membership was to be received from yesterday, begins from July 1 and ends on June 30.
This time the fiscal year of the society will begin from the date of its official inception.
At the end of each financial year, depending on how much profit the society makes, shareholders will be distributed cash dividend.
The Peninsula
