The American Chamber of Commerce in Qatar (AmCham Qatar) has hailed the Qatar-US economic and investment dialogue and said it will improve the economic and business ties between the two countries.
The dialogue comes in the light of Doha’s announced $35bn investments in the US over the next five years.
“The key objective of the dialogue is strengthening our economic and commercial ties with Qatar,” Scott Nathan, the US Department of State’s special representative for Commercial and Business Affairs, said at a recently concluded meeting in Doha, which was attended by more than 60 members of the American business community.
Regardless of the size, the US businesses are interested (positioned) to better understand the procurement processes in Qatar in order to become more competitive on the local market, he said.
“We want to work with all parties to investigate whether there are ways to mitigate some of the tax issues standing in the way of Qatari investment in the US,” according to Nathan, who had previously worked in the private investment sector for nearly two decades.
Robert A Hager, chairman, AmCham Qatar, said the chamber is working very closely with its partners at the US Embassy in Qatar as well as the US Chamber of Commerce on the matters that concern its members and Qatari business partners.
“Our members are engaged on some of the key infrastructure and development projects in Qatar and we hope that the success of this dialogue will result in more American companies setting up businesses in Qatar, and especially increase the number of small and medium enterprises joining the local economy,” he said.
As part of his visit to Qatar, Nathan met government officials and private sector stakeholders in support of bilateral trade and investment. Representative of the US Chamber of Commerce, Steven Lutes also joined him at the AmCham afternoon dialogue.