Qatar’s interest is in houses

The investment made since 2005 in Turkey by Qatar, to which the government has turned to attract capital following the straining of relations with the USA, has trailed in at 1.7 billion dollars.

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With Qatar proclaiming it would make a fifteen billion dollar investment in Turkey, eyes have turned to direct investment in Turkey. Qataris, shown by the data to have great interest in the residential market in Turkey, remain far behind other countries when it comes to direct investment.

 Lining up among the first five in terms of direct investment made in Turkey are the Netherlands, the USA, Austria, the UK and Luxembourg. Qatar only makes 18th place on the list.

 According to the Central Bank’s balance of payments data, between the years of 2005-2008 25.9 billion dollars of direct investment came to Turkey from the Netherlands, 11.4 billion from the USA, 10.4 billion from Austria, 9.7 billion from the UK, 9.3 billion from Germany, 9.1 billion from Spain, 8.4 billion from Belgium, 6.8 billion from France and 6.7 billion from Greece. The direct foreign investment coming to Turkey from Qatar in the same period was 1.689 billion dollars. The data reveals Qatar’s annual direct investment to be equivalent to around one-tenth of the US’s investments and one-fifteenth of the Netherlands’ investments.

 On the other hand, there has been a visible increase in Qataris’ investments in recent years. Qatar most recently acquired Digiturk. Even if the price of this acquisition is stated to have exceeded one billion dollars, no official announcement was made. Finansbank and Alternatifbank are also owned by Qataris. From Central Bank data, Qataris’ direct foreign invetsment in the first half of 2018 amounted to 68 million dollars. In the same period, 320 million dollars of direct investment came from Austria, 273 million from the Netherlands, 228 million from Luxembourg, 214 million from Azerbaijan and 193 million from the USA.

 Low capital

 According to the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, 202 Qatari and 390 US companies were set up in the period 2013-2018. The amount of capital that the Qataris put into these companies was 71.935 million Turkish lira, while the amount of the US capital was 92.673 million. Turning to the Trade Ministry’s report covering the period 2007-2016, this shows the total number of Qatari companies in Turkey to be 112. The number of companies of US origin stands at 1736.

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