CHAIRMAN: DR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: DR. KHALID MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

Qatar

Qatar Maritime and Logistics Summit to begin on Feb 18

Published: 21 Jan 2020 - 10:20 am | Last Updated: 05 Nov 2021 - 08:10 pm

The Peninsula

Doha: Under the patronage of Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Ministry of Transport and Communications will host the Qatar Maritime and Logistics Summit 2020, which will be organised by Mwani Qatar as strategic partner in cooperation with Lloyd’s List from February 18 to 19, at the Sheraton Grand Doha Resort and Convention Hotel.

The international summit, which is held for the first time in Qatar, comes within the framework of the Ministry of Transport and Communications’ strategic plan aimed to transform Qatar into a vital commercial and logistical hub in the region.  

The high-level event will bring together the senior experts from the global maritime sector and Qatar to discuss industry-wide, long-term challenges and opportunities as well as a number of important topics such as trade, global trends, port development, financing, technology, digital security, cybersecurity, safety, security and sustainability and many other topics related to shipping, port and logistics sectors.

By hosting this global event, the Ministry seeks to promote Qatar’s ports and logistics sectors to keep pace with growth and benefit from global experiences in these fields, strengthening Qatar’s position on the global maritime transport map, as well as boosting Hamad Port’s commercial share in the region and the world, especially after the great success it has achieved within a short period of operation. 

In its first edition, the Qatar Maritime and Logistics Summit will focus on the challenges that the maritime transport, port and logistics sectors facing between 2020 and 2030. With a focus on transportation, the summit will establish expectations for a logistics sector in transition, and a realignment of maritime with these expectations. The next decade is likely to see a closer alignment of the maritime and logistics sectors.

This alignment will coincide with two trends of global significance that will increasingly shape the decisions we take about investment in the infrastructure needed to keep maritime and logistics businesses active.

These trends are, firstly, a deeper concern for sustainability — most obviously in the need to protect a vulnerable environment — and, second, a keener perception of the impact of next-generation technologies on the world of work, particularly related to transportation. 

The QMLS 2020 will include 15 topics spread across four sessions, all scheduled over two days of high-level networking and interaction, identifying which trends are likely to have the greatest impact on transportation in the Middle East region and world-wide, and how swiftly we will need to act on these trends to stay in business. 

The summit’s first session will address Qatar Energy 2020-‘30 and the Gulf energy, transport and sustainability challenges. In the second session the expert speakers will discuss Global logistics trends, sustainability through the supply chain, safety through the supply chain 2020-30 and how can best safety practice flow through the supply chain, sessions 3 and 4 will feature topics about Liner shipping between 2020 and 2030, digital logistics and cyber security and how do port businesses add value to become a critical node in the transport network? On the last day of the event, the participants will have the opportunity to visit Hamad Port and explore port’s facilities, sates of development and the cutting-edge technology that port has features.