(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Satish Kanady | The Peninsula
Doha: Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) yesterday unveiled its aggressive 2022 strategic roadmap aims to enable it to emerge as a major financial hub in Mena and South Asian region.
The QFC 2.0 expansion plans target to triple the size of QFC's assets to $70bn and plans to create 10,000 high-skilled jobs in the private sector, in addition to increasing the total number of firms on QFC platform to 1,000.
Creation of four strategic clusters namely Sports, Digital, Financial and Media; and a New Emerging Belt Initiative (NEBI) are the key highlights of QFC's 2022 Strategy. QFC also aims to list at least 10 of its licensed companies on Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) by 2022.
As part of the New Emerging Belt Initiative (NEBI), QFC will develop an economic corridor that focuses on strategic alliances with markets such as Kuwait, Oman, Turkey, Pakistan and India.
These new emerging markets have been identified because they possess a large potential for future growth, especially considering that their combined GDP is estimated to be approximately $2.1 trillion, with total global FDI from these markets exceeding $150bn.
Elaborating on the ambitious plans, QFC Authority CEO, Yousuf Mohamed Al Jaida (pictured), said Qatar is a well-positioned international player in all the above said four strategic clusters.
QFC's new strategy aims to leverage its experience and expertise even further.
Highlighting the potential of sports industry businesses in Qatar, Al Jaidanoted the market size of the sports sector in Qatar is expected to reach $20bn (QR72bn) by 2023. In 2017, the estimated size ofthe global sports industry was $1.3 trillion. The ecosystem of the global sports industry generates $700bn annually.
'By hosting international events and investing in sports domestically and abroad, Qatar is manifesting itself as a global sports hub. To further develop the sports industry in Qatar, the QFC has signed an MoU with Aspire Zone Foundation to establish the Qatar Sports Business District, he said.
On the Financial Cluster, Al Jaida said there would renewed focus on Islamic finance. For instance, 'if you take Islamic finance, QFC has a vision to cover the entire globe's Islamic financial transactions, estimated at $2trillion, between three key financial centres-Qatar, Turkey and Malaysia.
Under the plan, Turkey would cover Islamic finance needs in Europe, Qatar would serve the greater Middle East and Malaysia will be the gateway to Asian markets The QFC platform is already home to several leading Islamic Finance institutions such as Al Rayan Investment and QInvest, Al Jaida said.
The financial services industries will have its focus on FinTech, Islamic Finance, Capital Markets and Asset Management.
On the FinTech, Al Jaida said the QFC is working very closely with the Qatar Development Bank to advance Qatar's national FinTech agenda. Currently, the QFC is home to Goals101, India's leading Fin tech and Big Data technology platform, which is in talks with leading domestic lenders for its machine learning and Artificial Intelligence solutions. He noted that global investment in FinTech companies in first half of 2018 hit $57.9bn across 875 deals. In 2018, the QFC partnered with B-Hive, a European collaborative innovation FinTech platform based in Belgium.
QFC will be dedicating lot of its resources to these clusters and creating unique vision for its businesses and financial services. The strengthening and development of Qatari capital market is vital. QFC will look to become a gateway for international Financial Institutions and capital markets. Institutional investors were the net buyers of approximately $2.3bn shares traded on QSE in 2018.
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