Somalia’s Prime Minister, Hamza Abdi Barre, has called on Qatar to invest in his country’s agricultural, fisheries, and livestock sectors during a meeting with officials of the Qatari Businessmen Association (QBA) held in Doha Wednesday.
QBA Chairman HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani welcomed Barre and his accompanying delegation in the presence of Somalia’s Minister of Finance Bihi Iman Aji; Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation Absher Omar Jama; Minister of Internal Security Mohamed Sheikh Ali; and ambassador Ron Saeed Qarsheen, chargé d’affaires of the Somali Embassy to the State of Qatar.
Also attending the meeting were QBA board member Saud al-Mana; QBA members Sheikh Mohamed bin Faisal al-Thani, Ashraf Abu Issa, Ihsan al-Khiyami, and Dr Mohamed Althaf, as well as QBA deputy general manager Sarah Abdallah.
The meeting explored Somalia’s agriculture, commercial, real estate, and industrial sectors, which are open for public or private investment.
Somalia has joined the East African market, which has more than 300mn consumers. This emphasises Somalia’s need to attract Qatari investors to establish projects that can support the country’s development and create job opportunities for its youth.
Barre said both countries have “distinguished and strong relations,” citing Qatar’s contribution to building Somali economic, investment, and development co-operation institutions. The prime minister said he expects these areas will witness “greater co-operation in the future.”
With a population of 14mn, Barre said, Somalia has enormous livestock wealth exceeding 40mn heads of cattle, in addition to more than 8.5mn hectares of fertile land and a huge coastline spanning 3,700km with a large fish wealth – all of which are available for Qatari investments.
Barre also said Somalia imports milk and its products despite the abundance in its livestock sector. He said this underlines the country’s need for food factories, especially in the dairy sector.
Sheikh Faisal said Qatar and Somalia have “strong historical relations,” which are “based on mutual respect, common understanding, and collaboration.”
“The success of any investor in the beginning will open the way for the rest of the investors,” Sheikh Faisal stressed.
Sheikh Faisal also welcomed Barre’s invitation to visit Mogadishu to study investment opportunities in the real estate, insurance, tourism, agriculture, and other economic sectors.
