More than 70% of Qatar’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have posted cumulative investments worth $852.3mn in 2015, the Gulf Organisation for Industrial Consulting (Goic) said in a report.
The amount, according to Goic, came from 596 SMEs or 77.3% of the total 771 manufacturing factories in Qatar, and represents about 1% of the total industrial investments valued at around $82.4bn.
The report also noted that for the same period, Qatar SMEs employed 35,400 workers or about 47% of the total manufacturing industry’s labour force (75,500 workers).
On the other hand, Goic statistics showed that about $15bn was invested in the SME sector in the Gulf Cooperation Council, or 4% of the total industrial investments in the GCC valued at $393.7bn.
The report further revealed that approximately $6bn was invested in small enterprises and about $9.5bn in medium enterprises.
Goic secretary general Abdulaziz bin Hamad al-Ageel said Goic recorded 13,995 SMEs in the GCC in 2015. Of the total number of companies, 11,288 are small businesses while 2,707 are medium-sized firms or 82.9% of the total 16,890 manufacturing factories in the GCC.
To distribute industries into these categories, Goic said it relies uniformly on the invested capital, which differentiates different types of Gulf industries after a thorough review of the GCC manufacturing industries database.
According to Goic, an enterprise is considered “small” if it has investments less than $2mn, while medium companies have investments between $2mn and $6mn. Large companies have investments worth $6mn or more, Goic further said.
Goic data also revealed that in 2015, SMEs’ share of the total manufacturing factories was about 82.8% and employed 44.3% of the total labour force despite the limited investments (4% of the total manufacturing industries investments).
In terms of labour force, SMEs employed around 721,399 individuals (about 44.3% of the total manufacturing industry’s 1.6mn labour force). Of the 44.3%, Goic said 28.7% were employed by small enterprises, while the remaining 15.6% were hired by medium enterprises.
According to Goic, SMEs operate in all industrial fields but are mainly focused in the areas of construction metals, transportation, and other industrial activities. Around 3,369 factories belong to this field or about 24% of the total number of SMEs.
In the manufacture of non-metallic products such as building materials, Goic recorded 2,316 factories in 2015 (16.5% of the total SMEs); manufacture of rubber and plastic products (11%); food and beverages (10.9%), and other industrial activities.
On accumulated capital, Goic said 2015 results showed that the manufacture of construction metals, transportation, and other industrial activities ranked first with $3.4bn worth of investments (about 22% of the total investments in SMEs).
This was followed by the manufacture of building materials with about $3.2bn worth of investments (21% of the total investments in SMEs), food and beverages ($1.9bn or 12%), rubber and plastic products ($1.7bn or 10.9%), and remaining industrial activities.
On labour force, the manufacture of construction metals, transportation, and other industrial activities topped the list with about 187,000 workers or 25% of the total SME labour force, followed by building materials (125,000 workers or 17.3%), food and beverages (75,000 workers or 10.4%), rubber and plastic products (72,000 or 10%), and other industrial activities.