Turkmenistan, Qatar to expand business ties
By Gunay Hasanova
Turkmenistan and Qatar have considered ways to expand bilateral relations and cooperation for the development of business ties.
The fuel and energy sector, transport and communication were named as the priority vectors of cooperation between Turkmenistan and Qatar, said the Turkmen government.
The priority directions were defined during the meeting of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov with Qatar’s Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani, the head of Al Faisal Holding.
President Berdimuhamedov and Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani stressed the huge potential for intensifying the mutually beneficial bilateral trade and economic partnership and promoting productive business relations in various spheres.
The agreements reached at the highest level following President Berdimuhamedov’s official visit to Qatar in October 2010 and Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani’s official visit to Turkmenistan in March 2016, giving an impulse to the bilateral relations, the report reads.
In addition, the activities of the Intergovernmental Turkmen-Qatari Commission play a significant role in the development of the relations between the two countries.
Earlier, President Berdimuhamedov invited the representatives of the Qatari business community to participate in the construction of the transnational gas pipeline Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI).
The president stressed that a new energy highway is designed to ensure a long-term supply of natural gas to the major countries of South-East Asia, contribute to solving the economic problems of the region and important social and humanitarian issues.
Being the sixth in the world for the volume of natural gas reserves, Turkmenistan produces about 70-80 billion cubic meters of gas a year, while most of its proven gas reserves are located in the Amu Darya basin in the south-east and in the Murgab South Caspian basins in the western part of the country.
Oil and natural gas account for about 55 percent of the Qatar’s gross domestic product. Petroleum has made the country one of the world’s fastest-growing countries with the highest level of income per capita.
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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova
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