On Tuesday, Levan Davitashvili, First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, met with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar, to discuss prospects for enhancing trade and economic ties between Georgia and Qatar. Since 2022, Georgia and Qatar have had a bilateral agreement on mutual promotion and protection of investments, along with a broader economic, trade, and technical cooperation framework.
Trade relations between Georgia and Qatar are not extensive. For example, trade turnover between the countries was small, although it increased to a record high in 2024. Foreign direct investment, tourism, and remittances are also small.
Foreign Direct Investments
Qatari investors have been interested in Georgia in 2013, and since then, the volume of direct investments from Qatar has fluctuated annually from 2 to 8.6 million. The largest direct investment in the country's economy was made by Qatar in 2017, amounting to USD 8.6 million. According to official statistics, from 2013 to 2024, a total of USD 48 million of direct investment was made from Qatar to Georgia.
Remittances
It is noted that the statistics of remittances transferred from Qatar to Georgia are positive. In 2024, a total of USD 4 million 194 thousand were transferred, while in 2023 this figure was USD 3 million 796 thousand.
In the 4 months of this year, the volume of remittances transferred from Qatar amounted to USD 1 million 498 thousand.
Trade Turnover
Over the years, trade relations with Qatar, as we mentioned, have not been much, although the turnover rate has been increasing y-o-y. In 2024, this growth was record-breaking, and the total export-import figure amounted to USD 26 million, which exceeded the turnover data for 2023 by USD 20 million.
Last year, such an increase in trade turnover was caused by the activation of the imports of aircraft from Qatar. As a result, the imports figure increased to USD 24.8 million annually, of which USD 22 million was aircraft alone. In 2024, we also imported small volumes of polymeric ethylene [USD 2.6 million], polymeric propylene [USD 84 thousand], and personal belongings [USD 26 thousand] from Qatar.
As for exports, their share in turnover is small and decreased slightly to USD 1.2 million in 2024. Accordingly, the list of exporting goods is also small and includes medicines, nuts and seeds, light vehicles, wines, and clothes.
Tourism
Tourism from the Persian Gulf state has not recovered compared to the pre-pandemic period, although it did not account for a large share of the total volume of visits even in 2019, when this number was a record high.
In 2024, a total of 1,914 visits were made from Qatar, which was almost 200 visits more than in 2023. In 2019, before the pandemic, the number of visits reached 3,525, which was a record figure.
As for the first quarter of 2025, a total of 391 visits were made from Qatar, while in the same period of 2024, there were 333 visits.
