According to the latest issue of Qatar Chamber’s monthly economic magazine Al Moltaqa, Capital investments in Qatar’s food industries sector grew by 35% in the past five years to reach $1.21 billion, reflecting a significant increase in the total growth of the country’s manufacturing sector.
Report on the growth recorded in the country’s food industries’ capital investments was based on an ongoing study by Qatar Chamber’s Research and Industries Department.
The study, titled ‘Production Capacities and Degree of Utilisation as an Input to Enhance the Growth of the Manufacturing Industry in Qatar’, unveiled that the growth was distributed over the entire branches of manufacturing industries even if a large percentage is shared among different food industries.
Previously, the Qatar Chamber stated that the country’s manufacturing industry witnessed “considerable growth” in the number of facilities and production in the past five years.
As per the data provided by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (Qatar Industrial Gateway), the study indicated that the number of food production units grew by 103% which was “the largest growth rate among all other manufacturing industries including oil and gas-related industries.”
It said the rise in market shares of Qatari manufacturing industries in local markets to “satisfying levels near to achieving the relative self-sufficiency” would help provide the national economy with a solid basic foundation for the next planning stage for the industry’s future.
Similarly, the study showed that machinery and equipment manufacturing has grown significantly as their facilities also increased by 82% in the last five years.
The study emphasized that meeting domestic demand for basic products, even if it is sufficient in the short term, “will not be so in the medium and long terms, especially when markets reach the saturation stage and the continued targeting of Qatari market by current and potential competitors that leads to a high level of competition.”
“Qatari industries have to effectively control the various cost elements to improve the level of competitiveness of their products at the local and foreign markets,” the study also recommended.
The Chamber stressed that the interest in studying productive capacities in the non-oil manufacturing sector “is of special importance” as it helps in shaping the future policy for this sector within a long-term strategy.
