Rising Infrastructure Projects Open Doors for Businesses in Qatar

Doha, Qatar: Qatar is in the brisk of emerging as a global trade hub with swiftly enhancing infrastructures and growing business opportunities for several companies that were introduced into the market over the past decade.

This has paved the way for numerous Austrian-owned firms in the country as the economy and GDP growth remain buoyant.

In an interview with The Peninsula, the Commercial Counselor at the Embassy of Austria in Qatar, Andreas Stauber, highlighted the country’s robust bilateral business relations along with joint ventures planned for the year.

He mentioned that a few Austrian companies will soon join the market in 2024 as talks are going on with their subsidiaries and partners in Qatar.

He said: “I think a lot would depend also on the upcoming projects here because Austrian companies follow the market.”

Stauber outlined that new infrastructure projects would mean the probability of increasing the number of subsidiaries just to support those projects here in Doha.

The official noted that Qatar and Austria have very strong ties having partners and operators to support and improve ideas on a business level. Talking through the upcoming occasions, he said the most interesting event is a general incoming mission, which is scheduled to take place by the end of this month.

For the incoming mission, a business-to-business network will be hosted, where around 5 to 10 Austrian companies will come to Qatar and meet companies to discuss their products, and services, whilst improving their contacts and exposure on the market.

Next month will also witness various activities including trade shows, where Austrian companies will participate in the Project Qatar exhibition. In October, several companies from Qatar and Kuwait will be invited to Austrian headquarters for an event named ‘food and beverage marketplace’.

“Companies that are interested in food and beverage products from Austria can join and have a look at the newest developments and directly talk to Austrian producers in that sector,” he said. Business opportunities in Austria, especially due to the framework conditions are picking up sectors to boost across the country, said the official. 

Stauber mentioned that Austria is a prominent business hub in Europe and is considered a high interest for Qatari companies. He said, “ Austria has more than 400 headquarters of international companies including the big multinational companies, but also smaller companies that work in the Austrian market.”

He also pointed out that one of the main reasons besides the stable framework is the geographic proximity to markets in Central and Eastern Europe.

He said, “In Austria, we have about 700,000 members of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber.” Out of this number of companies, about 10 percent are active in exports and most of those companies, of course, are active worldwide.

Nearly 70 percent of the Austrian products are exported to EU nations, making it a huge export contributor in the region.

In the meantime, there are very interesting companies from Austria based and operating in Qatar across numerous industries from construction to food and beverage to all kinds of service-related products.

Expounding on the recently implemented missions by Advantage Austria, he remarked “One of our most successful missions in the last few months was the incoming mission in the railway sector. 

That was a big project that we were working on and we had seven participants from Austria who were experts in their respective fields they were able to get a better idea of the market here and meet the most important stakeholders. It’s of course a sector that’s very important in Austria.”