The Lazio Region is increasingly strengthening internationalization towards Arab countries and, for this reason, it is promoting a cycle of events, in collaboration with Unioncamere Lazio and Tecnopolo SpA, to offer an orientation on commercial, legal and fiscal aspects and indications on the tools to develop exports to the Arab world. This initiative includes the webinar “Country Presentation QATAR – Approach to the market and opportunities for the business system”, held on April 15th.
The meeting was organized by Lazio Innova – the Lazio Region company for innovation and support for SMEs and startups – in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Qatar, ITA-ICE Doha and the SACE office for the MENA region, with the aim of offering companies based in Lazio an orientation on the development of specific internationalization programs towards the Emirate of the Gulf to open up to a new market which, in recent years, has been a real economic boom.
Qatar has a development plan based mainly on the enormous availability of energy resources (oil and, above all, natural gas), which make it an important interlocutor for the next few years. The Emirate is the leading exporter of liquefied natural gas in the world, with a GDP per capita level among the highest in the world with a particular propensity for the quality of Made in Italy products. Even in the face of the pandemic, the country has shown great adaptability, and above all, its economic activity has never stopped.
The Lazio Region, therefore, has decided to organize this meeting by virtue of the political, institutional, commercial and cultural relations that exist between Italy and Qatar and, in particular, due to the significant presence of the Italian industry in some of the major infrastructure projects and of defense in the Emirate. According to Customs Qatarine, in 2020 Italy was the 12th Customer Country and the 6th Supplier Country of Qatar (with a 4.3% share), while according to ISTAT, the overall trade of goods of our country with the Qatar (our 55th trading partner and 49th supplier) reached € 1.85 billion in 2020.
At the opening of the webinar it was the Ambassador of Italy to Qatar, Alessandro Prunas, who illustrated to the participants the peculiarities of the Emirate and all the opportunities that the country is able to offer to Italian companies with a targeted and concrete approach to companies and with useful suggestions on how to approach the local market. “[…] Qatar is a country with a very stable political leadership, a very ambitious country, with a very young and well-prepared leadership, educated in the best American universities. […] The country is projected to be a place of attraction for investments” said the Ambassador.
Short presentations by ITA-ICE, Sace services and information on upcoming trade fairs and opportunities on the calendar followed.
