Albania increases ties with Qatar

TIRANA, Feb. 29 – A delegation of the Saudi Arabia comes to Tirana while Albanian President Bamir Topi visits Qatar. They are part of the multiple meetings Albanian diplomats and top officials have held with many Arab Middle East countries, mainly in the Persian Gulf recently.
Topi was in a long visit to Qatar where he met all top officials and urged the local businessmen to come and invest in his country.During all the meetings he focused in urging the Qatari businesses come and invest to Albania. Topi expressed Albania’s interest in “further strengthening the bilateral cooperation in the fields of interests, especially increasing the Qatar investment, extending and intensifying concrete projects in economy, energy, infrastructure, agriculture, agro-industry, mines and gas, but also tourism.”
Topi met with the Emir of Qatar Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani and both highly evaluated the positive climate and the excellent political dialogue between the two countries. They both expressed their will to further strengthen bilateral ties and concretizing them in important projects.
Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani guaranteed his country’s further and fruitful strategy to assist Albania in the context of the United Nations and also the Islamic Conference.
Head of the Qatari Consultative Council Mohamed Bin Mubarak Al-Kholaifi also stressed the need for further cooperation and exchange of the two parliaments. He also pledged he would soon, in May, make a visit to Albania. During the talks with Topi they discussed on the bilateral ties and their consolidation, reconfirming the commitment for their further cooperation in economy and with investment.
Topi also praised the talks and dialogue and added that inter-parliamentary relations and cooperation were of special importance. He urged further extension of such a cooperation which he said would “contribute in the overall strengthening of the cooperation between our two people and countries.”
President Topi also met with the Qatari head of the Chamber of Commerce Sheikh Khalifa bin Jasim Al Thani to discuss on finding new space and areas of interest in the economic cooperation. They discussed on how to increase the number of the Qatari business coming and investing in the tiny western Balkan country mainly in infrastructure, tourism and energy.
Topi said that despite all the facilities Albania offered to the international business “there exists the full will to initiate and carry out new projects in energy, tourism agro-business, education, qualification of the personnel, exploitation of hydric resources and so on.”
Jasim Al Thani highly evaluated Topi’s visit to Qatar as a “concrete step in extending the economic-commercial exchange.”
In another step in this line, Albania’s Prime Minister Sali Berisha received on Monday a Saudi delegation headed by Deputy Minister for Research and Agricultural Development Abdullah Al-Obaid, who is on a three-day visit to Albania. The delegation expressed particular interest for bilateral cooperation in the agricultural sector such as the export of Albanian agricultural products to Saudi Arabia. Berisha introduced to the Saudi officials Albania’s main national projects in agriculture such as that of olives, nut and other fruit trees. Both parties in the meeting expressed interest to further expand economic ties between the two countries in other sectors as well.
Albanian Foreign Minister Edmond Haxhinasto considered the visit of the Saudi delegation as “an important step in strengthening ties between Albania and Saudi Arabia.
There have been noticed many visits from different Arab countries in Tirana and also many Albania top officials have visited them recently. Tirana seems in a big push of stronger ties with these Arab countries.
Though Albania became a member of the Islamic Conference since 1992 it has had no close ties with its members. In the last year or two Tirana seems to have turned its eyes looking for more investment and more money from there.