BY MOHAMMAD SHOEB
DOHA: Qatar is expecting a significant improvement in terms of the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ to regain its number one position in the Mena region in the upcoming Global Competitiveness Report 2015-16, said an official of Qatari Businessmen’s Association (QBA) at the launch of the Executive Opinion Survey for this year’s report.
The Global Competitiveness Report, prepared by the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum (WEF), is an annual exercise aiming at improving the ease of doing business across the world.
The Report, to be released in September, will assess the competitiveness landscape of 144 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. The report series remains the most comprehensive assessment of national competitiveness worldwide.
Qatar had led the Arab world and the Middle Eastern countries to rank 16th on the Global Competitiveness Index that was declared in the WEF’s annual report for 2014. Present at the press conference were Sheikh Mohamed bin Faisal bin Qassim Al Thani, member of QBA; Dr Darwish Al Emadi, Director of Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) at Qatar University; and Sarah Abdullah, Deputy General Manager, QBA. “The new business-friendly regulations that have been laid out recently were not there in the previous surveys. So we are optimistic that it will affect the factual data (collected through the opinion survey) positively and help improve Qatar’s rankings in the forthcoming Report,” said Abdullah.
Dr Al Emadi said: “Qatar is doing brilliantly, but there is still room for improvements in several areas, such as legislation, infrastructure and labour laws among others. The government is making a lot of efforts in this regard, and we wish to be among the top 10 most competitive economies in the world.”
The QBA and SESRI in partnership with the WEF will conduct the Survey over the next couple of months.
The Survey, dubbed as “The Voice of the Business Community”, is a major component of the Report and provides the key ingredient that turns it into a representative annual measure of a nation’s economic environment and its ability to achieve sustained growth.
Business executives operating in Qatar will be surveyed to capture their opinion on the business environment in which they operate.
Conveyed by last year’s report, Qatar’s strong Competitiveness rests on solid foundations consisting of high quality institutional frame work, stable macro-economic environment, and efficient goods market. The high growth combined with prudent governmental support to the financial sector contributed to maintaining a strong macroeconomic and financial stability. The Peninsula
