Article: Qatar Reshapes Its Wealth Fund Strategy With New Local Platform
Qatar is setting up a dedicated platform to manage and grow its wealth fund’s domestic portfolio worth hundreds of billions of dollars, marking a radical reshaping of the gas-rich country’s sovereign investing landscape.
The platform, Doha Investment, will seek to accelerate long-term value creation and boost private-sector participation in the Gulf nation’s economy, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at the Qatar Economic Forum in New York Sunday.
“It will support our strongest companies, help emerging businesses grow, deepen capital markets and attract international capital and expertise to contribute to this effort,” the premier said.
The plans, first reported by Bloomberg News in January, were set in motion before the regional war began. In addition to helping prioritize local development in key areas, the move would enable the $580 billion Qatar Investment Authority better manage its global investments, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
The creation of the new entity adds momentum to a regional infrastructure push, with Saudi Arabia accelerating investment in Red Sea ports and the United Arab Emirates pursuing a multibillion-dollar “Zero Hormuz” strategy to develop routes that bypass the crucial waterway.
Qatar expects to award about $38.5 billion in new infrastructure projects over the next five years, including public-private partnerships, Sheikh Mohammed said. A separate real-estate and hospitality pipeline is expected to attract $22.5 billion in private investment, he added.
The push to double down on local development comes as the Middle East confronts the economic fallout from the US-Iran war, which Sheikh Mohammed described as an “earthquake” whose shockwaves had reached far beyond the region.
“Lasting security cannot be built through repeated cycles of escalation and retaliation,” he said, calling for a framework in which sovereignty is respected and no country poses a threat to another.
One of the world’s largest and most consequential investors, the QIA has continued to deploy capital overseas amid the war.
Locally, it holds stakes in firms that touch every corner of the local economy, from the biggest banks and developers to utilities and telecommunications firms. Many of them, like the $41 billion Qatar National Bank and Ooredoo QPSC, trade in Doha.
Before the war began, the QIA had started to signal a return to the kind of big-ticket dealmaking that had transformed it into a top global investor. That was based on the expectation that an expansion in liquefied natural gas production would deliver roughly $30 billion in additional annual revenue to the state.
But Iran’s March strike on Ras Laffan put about 17% of Qatar’s export capacity out of commission, with losses estimated at $20 billion and repairs expected to take at least three years. The country has since exported some LNG cargoes, but they remain far below pre-war levels as tanker transits through the Strait of Hormuz remain risky.
“We do not underestimate the uncertainty ahead,” Sheikh Mohammed said. “But we will not allow short-term disruption to determine our long-term direction.”
The government of the State of Qatar is the underwriter of the Qatar Economic Forum, Powered by Bloomberg.
