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Doha
Qatar has successfully challenged Saudi Arabia and the UAE and triumphed over the blockade’s economic impact, according to a report in Fair Observer.
Ironically, Qatar owes its current success to the Saudi-led coalition’s economic and diplomatic severance.
To compensate for severed economic ties with other Gulf states — including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain — Doha sought innovative ways to attract international business and foreign direct investment (FDI). Now, companies are enticed to operate in Qatar because it has “a legal environment based on English common law, the right to trade in any currency, 100 percent foreign ownership, 100 percent repatriation of profits and a 10 percent corporate tax on locally sourced profits.”
Despite the embargo, FDI to Qatar increased by 4 percent in 2017, and the number of new companies licensed to operate in the country went up by 66 percent in the same year.
The blockade has also contributed to Qatar’s self-sufficiency. Along with foreign direct investment, the domestic production of medicine and agricultural products has grown significantly.
For example, Qatar decided to bolster national food security through Baladna, a company that has become the country’s largest locally-owned fresh dairy and beverage supplier.
The Qatari government implemented Baladna and other infrastructure projects to cope with the desert landscape.
These initiatives use innovative solutions to transform the arid landscape into fruitful agricultural land.
Due to its newfound economic vigour and weighty relationships in the global community, Doha is rising to regional prominence, even threatening Saudi and Emirati hegemony in the Gulf.
It was the very embargo intended to incapacitate Qatar’s economy that led to its prosperity and diversification.
Two years after the crisis began, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh have nothing to show for their coalition’s efforts to pressure Qatar into surrendering. Rather than folding to its GCC neighbours, Doha has challenged the Saudis and Emiratis.
Qatari economic successes, coupled with Saudi and Emirati reputational shortcomings, provide further opportunity for Doha to continue rising to regional prominence.
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14/06/2019
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