The $62 billion Qatar Investment Authority (QIA)Â could access a greater range of investments in China if its government executes plans to set up an investment promotion office in Beijing in 2010.
The Qatar Investment Promotion Department, a government unit aiming to attract corporate and private investors to its economy, plans to establish a Beijing office to catalyse and manage investment flows between Qatar and China.
Speaking to China Daily, Farzam Kamalabadi, president of Future Trends International (FTI), said the Qatari Government office would help the country’s institutional investors, such as the QIA, to pursue opportunities in the banking, real estate, infrastructure, chemical and water treatment industries in China.
Kamalabadi, a former senior advisor to the national oil industries of Oman, Iran, Kuwait and China, spoke to the Chinese newspaper during the Global Think Tank Summit in Beijing earlier this month.
The US-headquartered FTI is a group of companies focusing on China’s oil, gas and energy industries, including funds and investments related to these sectors, but also operates in other regions and industries.
The group has run energy industry operations in the Middle East and China, and also runs commodities investment funds. Citing this experience, it pitches itself as a capable advisor for government and businesses setting up or expanding their operations in China.
It vendors the China AME Energy Fund, a partnership between FTI, Arch Group and financial Partners Bank, which makes medium-term equity investments in mid-market energy, oil and gas companies in China, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.
FTI is also setting up a China Real Estate Fund and China Clean Energy Fund.
