Report by Qatar

Since its last Trade Policy Review, Qatar has had to deal with a continuously evolving economic and political landscape, both at the global and the regional level. Some of these new trends reflect a shift in market fundamentals, including regulatory changes, whilst others are more specific to particular situations that, in some cases, are still unfolding. In response to this, Qatar, under the leadership of H.H. the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, continued to develop its foreign economic policy, including a realignment of its trade policy framework to the emerging realities on the ground. This included expanding Qatar’s export and import markets, establishing new shipping routes, developing domestic markets, implementing further trade facilitation measures, supporting and promoting foreign investment into the country, opening trade offices in the capital cities of key trading partners and continuing to complement the multilateral trading system through regional and bilateral cooperation agreements, amongst other initiatives. In this sense, the various situations faced by Qatar since 2014 (described in p. 96) led to the development its policy toolkit in order to meet its strategic development goals as well as its global commitments.