India, Qatar Push To Double Trade by 2030

India and Qatar are making “steady, structured progress” on the commitments agreed upon during the landmark state visit of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to India last February, as both countries seek to double bilateral trade by 2030.

Speaking on the sidelines of the recent launch of ‘India Utsav 2025’ at LuLu Hypermarket Al Gharafa, Indian ambassador Vipul emphasised that His Highness the Amir’s visit created a positive trajectory of cooperation and partnership with India as the two nations seek to enhance economic, cultural, and political ties.

Vipul noted that current bilateral trade has held steady, dominated by Qatari exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as well as crude oil, petrochemicals, and urea.

“The trade between India and Qatar is, of course, dominated by the energy exports... and the overall figure has been about $14bn for the last two years between India and Qatar. India would be the second largest trading partner of Qatar... and I think India would be the third largest exporter to Qatar,” Vipul explained.

Emphasising both countries’ trade and economic goals to achieve wider trade and investment links, he said: “We decided at the time of the visit that we should double our bilateral trade by 2030. So we have to keep making efforts in that regard.”

According to Vipul, both governments are committed to expanding their trade baskets, capitalising on “complementarities” between the two economies, and fostering stronger business-to-business links to give further momentum to growing cooperative relations.

The ambassador also outlined ongoing talks across a broad range of sectors, including food processing, ports, shipping, civil aviation, infrastructure, Information Technology (IT), banking, financial services, and emerging fields like startups and technology partnerships. High-level Qatari delegations to India and joint commission meetings are planned in the coming months to maintain momentum, Vipul also pointed out.

Aside from key targets, such as doubling bilateral trade by 2030 and further enhancing Qatari investments in India, India and Qatar are also creating more opportunities for Indian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Qatar, according to Vipul.

He said: “It was decided that there should be further enhancement of Qatar investments in India...I also see a good opportunity for enhancing our partnership in startups and technology companies as well.”

The ambassador added: “We have to take advantage of those complementarities... I’m sure that both our sides will keep working, both at the government level and also at fostering more business networks between our two countries.”