The Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and the Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA), will allow the tourism sector to make investment opportunities for private firms in six separate ventures. The financial assistance will be provided by the QDB which will be up to QR100mn.
The investments will come in areas of luxury dhow dining cruise, luxury coach companies, 4×4 leasing units, MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) professional congress organiser and destination management services, ticketing systems and information distribution and roving cottage market/bazaar. Both financing and non-financing support will be offered by the QDB and the bidding will continue till May 2014.
QDB will provide 70% of the investment for each project with a maximum loan of QR100mn. The investors have to provide a minimum of 30% of the total investment and the loan period is for 15 years. The partnership will help promote small and medium enterprises felt QTA chairman Issa bin Mohamed al-Mohannadi.
The partnership between QTA-QDB will enable investment opportunities for the private sectors in the tourism industry and this will be the first step taken to improve the tourism sector. This step will help promote Qatar in a big way and the agreement with the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is another positive step for Qatar tourism.
QDB CEO Abdulaziz bin Nasser al-Khalifa was of the view that this opportunity would ensure an increased participation of the private sector in the tourism industry in the country. The QTA has identified the opportunities in the tourism sector and there are a number of other opportunities where investment is needed and will be announced later.
All firms participating in the bid will be treated equally and preference be given to investors with experience in each sector. Preference will also be given to Qatari companies. With procurement starting immediately the entire process will take four months. The Request For Proposal (RFP) for each project will be issued from this month. The bids will be entertained till May and two months May to June, will be kept for evaluation and the process will end in August after selection and negotiation in June and July.
