In Collaboration with Qatar Financial Centre and FTSE Russel, Qatar Stock Exchange Holds Corporate Sustainability Practices Seminar.

03 December 2019

Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) today, 2 December 2019, has held, in Al Wadi Hotel, a seminar on the reinforcement of the sustainability practices and environmental governance in the investment environment in Qatar.  The seminar was held in collaboration with Qatar Financial Centre and FTSE Russel; one of the world-wide leading investment management institutions. The seminar was attended by elite experts to proceed forward in extending the support to the Qatari listed entities to attract more investors and further develop the institutional performance through the issuance of relevant sustainability reports.

The seminar comes also as part of backing the QSE efforts in supporting the Qatari listed companies in fields of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) following the QSE issuance of the guidelines for preparing sustainability reports in 2016.

On this occasion, Mr. Hussein Mohammed Al Abdullah, Marketing & Communication Manager in QSE expressed QSE encouragement and support to achieve sustainability. In his opening statement, Mr. Al Abdullah pointed out that the seminar’s activities do contribute to reinforce the sustainability practices in the investors’ circles, listed companies and business community in the State of Qatar. He further emphasized QSE concern in implementing the sustainable development principles while performing its role in servicing the national economy and the local community outlining its participation in implementing economic, social, human and environmental progress in Qatar Vision 2030.

Mr. Al Abdullah added “Investors worldwide are now more focused on sustainability factors while taking their investment decisions. We, in QSE, are confident that entities active in implementing and spreading sustainability strategies will be more capable to attract funds and foreign investments and at the time this will definitely assist in achieving their competitive abilities”.

Mr. Al Abdullah mentioned in his statement that QSE was one of the best performing exchanges among developed and emerging market last year, where it has attracted foreign investment flows of nearly US$ 2.5 billion. He added that QSE is continually working to be a leading investment destination for the sustainable investments in the region.

On his part, Mr. Waqas Samad, CEO of FTSE Russel, marked the importance of the sustainability practices and indicated that such practices has now become a factors that affect the turnout of international investors and investment portfolios manager to trade in the listed companies stocks within the international benchmarks where entities implementing the sustainability governance measurements are favorably received by the investors.