Qatar: ambassador Salzano, "partners in fight against terrorism"

Doha  - The Diplomatic Institute of the qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs has hosted Ambassador of the Italian Republic to Qatar Pasquale Salzano, where he gave a lecture on the Qatari-Italian relations and the 40 years since the beginning of relations between the two countries.

"The State of Qatar and Italy are partners in the fight against terrorism and are members of an international coalition against terrorism," said Mr. Salzano. "The two countries have a lot of special activities to combat this phenomenon, which must be defeated in order to restore peace to the countries that hit by terrorism, he added.

He also spoke about the development of relations between Qatar and Italy, referring to the visit of the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al -Thani to Italy, and the visit of the Prime Minister of Italy to Doha as well as the visits of a number of ministers to Qatar during the past three months. Ambassador Salzano said that the volume of trade exchange between Qatar and Italy increased by 11% during the last six months, reaching about QR 3.7 billion, equivalent to about one billion dollars, compared to the same period last year.

"There is a steady increase in the volume of trade between the State of Qatar and Italy, and keenness to further strengthening relations between Italian institutions and their Qatari counterparts, as well as the development of visions on many international issues," he added, noting that the Qatari-Italian relations are a model of relations between countries because of the keenness to develop bilateral cooperation in the interest of both peoples and the two friendly countries.

The Ambassador expressed his country's appreciation for the Qatari initiative to provide in-kind assistance to the Italian people during the earthquake last year, pointing out that this is an expression of true friendship between the two countries.
He said that the number of Qatari visas has increased by 30 percent, as Italy has become a distinctive tourist destination for Qataris.Qatar Airways has bought the Italian Meridian airline and now has four flights a day to Italy," he said, adding that about 49 percent of the growth in the airline industry in Italy is with Qatari investments.

The Italian ambassador said that the Qatari investment is concentrated in a number of Italian tourist cities and the island of Sardinia is one of them. He pointed out that the State of Qatar invests in all fields including the technology sector, and it imports a lot of industrial machinery from Italy.