Doha – Business Class
In its drive to strengthen the nation’s export market, Qatar Development Bank (QDB), through the support of its export arm, Tasdeer, organized a workshop on “Best Payment Practices” to engage the nation’s exporters in an intensive educational program on the most effective practices for commercial transactions between buyers, sellers, importers and exporters in international trade. The workshop was held on 15 May 2017 at Oryx Rotana Doha.
The workshop was designed to educate suppliers involved in the export market on the most advisable and safest financial practices in cross-border transactions for traditional and electronic trade. The organization of this workshop comes at a time when Qatar’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly growing the capacity to export goods and tertiary services abroad at regional and global levels.
Commenting on the workshop, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al-Khalifa said: “Through our specialist export wing, Tasdeer, QDB continues to empower local SMEs by organizing educational workshops—through engaging exporters in industrially relevant training courses, we help our entrepreneurs expand the size of their trade and familiarize them with the most important financial procedures involved in international trade.
“This workshop is important because educating Qatari exporters and suppliers on the best practices of payment helps our local businesses avoid many of the problems that commonly arise as a result of misjudging the transaction requirements, and consequently, being trapped in an unfavorable position that may compromise their dues.”
The workshop discussed four main themes: the global trends of international trade, the main elements involved in the approval of an international sales contract, the rules and functioning of documentary credits and standby documentary credits, as well as requests for different types of guarantees.
QDB, through the support of its export arm, Tasdeer, frequently organizes workshops, training courses and matchmaking events to empower local SMEs and entrepreneurs to expand their businesses abroad, grow their scales of competitiveness and sustain healthy growth rates.
The training workshop on “Best Payment Practices” comes as the latest in a series of export capacity-building initiatives launched by Tasdeer. For instance, this past March, the development agency’s export arm arranged a workshop on the Harmonized System Nomenclature 2017. Furthermore, Tasdeer has held numerous workshops to raise the awareness of SME-owners on the mechanisms involved in international trade to enhance their capabilities and ensure commercially successful trade dealings with global clients.
In addition to the organization of workshops and training courses, Tasdeer frequently promotes local SMEs in regional and international exhibitions in order to open new markets for them and help them forge deals that allow them to enhance their volumes of regional and international trade. As such, QDB is directly involved in diversifying the export economy and promoting the country’s brand across international marketplaces, as envisioned in the Qatar National Vision 2030.
Notably, Tasdeer has contributed significantly to the development and promotion of Qatari export products to the global market through providing trade-related support for local businesses. Besides offering local exporters valuable consultation on navigating foreign markets, Tasdeer has created a system for the provision of credit guarantees for exports and services. These financing and insurance coverage solutions are available to Qatari exporters and are designed to protect them against risks that are generally inherent in the global export trade.
Since its launch in 2011, Tasdeer has been at the forefront of developing Qatar’s export strategy for non-hydrocarbon and oil products. The development organization makes available wide-ranging information to SMEs, including country-specific case studies, analytics, and business directories. The research team at Tasdeer regularly publish their findings in a variety of manuals with specialized instructions, such as “Trade Secrets: The Export Answer Book for SMEs” and “Qatar’s Exporters Directory.” As well as offering local exporters valuable consultation, these Tasdeer publications have sought to provide information on accesses QDB’s financing and insurance coverage solutions available to Qatari exporters against the risk of a loss of funds inherent in the global export trade.