Qatar looks to China for more investments

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.

Sponsored Content

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.

Leave a Comment

Sort content by

Taking the future into account

At the International Centre for Pension Management’s biannual meeting in London, Jack Gray and Generation’s David Blood had a tête à tête on sustainability. An academic at the Paul Woolley Centre for Capital Market Dysfunctionality at the University of Technology Sydney, Gray has written a paper, Misadventures of an Irresponsible Investor, that at its core

Kay calls for philosophical shift

In an interview with conexust1f.flywheelstaging.com, John Kay, economist and author of the UK government-commissioned enquiry into long termism and the UK equity markets, has said it is “fanciful to imagine large number of trustees will have the skills and knowledge to have long-term relationships with corporates”. Kay says the key players in the UK equity

UK equity allocation falls

Equity allocation by UK pension schemes continues to fall, but the assets are being re-allocated into “everything else except gilts”, according to Mercer chief investment officer, Andrew Kirton. Last year equities allocations by UK pension funds fell by 5 per cent, according to Mercer, as they attempt to deal with the enormous amount of pension

CalSTRS considers
asset risk factors

The $152.5-billion Californian State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) is undertaking an asset-allocation review that will consider the underlying risk factors of assets for the first time. Chris Ailman, chief investment officer of CalSTRS, says the fund is in the middle of an asset-allocation study, which would likely take six months, and would take a different

Natixis champions
Asian alternatives

In a bid to achieve long-term returns without incurring the risk of today’s choppy markets, Asia’s biggest institutional investors are increasingly opting for alternatives in their asset allocation. The majority of respondents in a survey of 120 Asian institutional investors no longer deem long-held industry norms – such as lengthy holding periods or conventional 60/40

PIP in to infrastructure

A swathe of UK pension funds is poised to increase its exposure to infrastructure. In a small start, which enthusiasts believe will quickly grow, the Pension Infrastructure Platform (PIP) will launch as a fund in January 2013, targeting £2 billion ($3.24 billion) worth of projects with the backing of around 10 UK pension funds. The

Previous