In the name of God and with His Blessing, I declare this Thirty-Third Session open for the deliberations of your esteemed Council.

Honourable Brothers,

      It gives me pleasure to meet you today at the beginning of a new session of the Advisory Council and thank you and the brothers, the former members who had carried out their responsibilities in the Council during the past period, and welcome the brothers, the new members of the Council, wishing them and you all success.

      Shura, my Brothers, is the guiding eye which we have always followed to develop our country. It has also raised the citizens awareness of the objectives of public affairs and supported the reform project in our state and turned it from mere wishes we had to realities we have started to feel and shall, God Willing, continue to harvest their fruits for years to come, to maintain for future generations their right to decent living under the banner of a rising homeland that confidently embraces modernization and proudly observes the traditions.

Brothers,

      During the previous year, pursued our national program on more than a track, and we were keen to establish it according to a well planned course based on optimum, creative utilization of resources so as to ensure the citizens of today with their right to enjoy the achievements in which they take part, and preserve for the citizens of tomorrow their opportunity in furthering our country’s plan for sustained progress.

      This progress has been demonstrated by our economic performance, where Qatar has witnessed since the beginning of the 21st Century a qualitative and quantitative economic leap. During this period significant achievements have been realized, which placed our country in the center of the world chart for a number of major industries, particularly the gas liquidification and gas-to-liquids industries and the fertilizer and petrochemical industries, where contracts were signed with international firms to establish gigantic projects with investments totaling more than 60 billion dollars, among which are the LNG projects, which will be exported to all world markets, with roughly equal shares among them.

      As a result of these positive developments, it is expected that Qatar’s production of gas will be more than 70 million tons in 2010, which represents about 30% of the LNG expected to be exported to the whole world during that same year. Moreover, Qatar has made big steps to become one of the most important international centers for transforming gas-to-liquids, by signing an initial agreement with both Shell and Exxon Mobil. When we add to this the production of Oryx Project and its possible expansions, the total clean petroleum products expected of these projects will reach about 400 thousand barrels per day.

      Besides, Qatar has continued major expansions in the fertilizer and petrochemical industries, which placed it as one of the leading producers in this field in the Middle East and the World. We are also working for establishing further industries to diversify the sources of income and increase the desired integration in various economic activities.

      During the past years, our strategy aimed at relying on our gas and oil resources and their optimum utilization. As a result, we find that the quantitative economic indices that had taken an upward trend since year 2000 maintained the same direction in 2003 which witnessed a relatively high economic growth, a low inflation rate and significant surpluses in the balance of trade and the current account. We intend to continue the openness policy to develop a free and flexible economy, capable of growing at high economic rates under the new world economic system and its future developments, by increasing its competitive capability, diversifying its activities and attracting investors. The process of improving the investment climate is moving on through enactment of laws, the adoption of measures and provision of incentives that help expand the range of foreign and domestic investments.

Honourable Brothers,

      The returns that will be earned out of the expansion projects shall be, God Willing, high. At the same time, however, our commitments cannot be underestimated. They are essential obligations that must be honoured to enable us to achieve the priorities we have set for ourselves, foremost of which are: continuity of the high growth rates of our economy, the provision of a decent standard of living for our citizens and realization of sustainable development that does not depend on one source of income. Hence, our policies in the coming phase will seek the distribution of the returns of the economic success we achieve in a balanced manner to satisfy several requirements.

      We must pay the foreign loans we have obtained for the execution of many of the major projects on which our economy today greatly depends. Although those projects ,together with the economic and financial policies of our country, have raised the credit rating of Qatar by a number of points in a few years to an advanced level on the international aspect, maintaining this standard requires, among many other things, repayment of those loans, which will strengthen international confidence in our ability to honour all our commitments.

      To avoid intensive reliance on foreign loans in the future, especially since we are embarking on the implementation of new key economic projects, we have to direct part of our monetary revenues to ensuring the implementation of those projects, the completion of which is vital for the continuity of development at its high patterns.

      The infrastructure projects such as roads, sea ports, industrial cities and construction of a modern airport and advanced means of communication, shall have their required share of attention to raise their standard to that of advanced countries.

      We will also increase expenditure on improving the health and educational services and the training of our national human resources.

      Our constant consideration of the future requires that we allocate part of our financial revenues as liquid reserves to act as a balancing fund, aimed at reducing any possible negative impacts arising from fluctuation of oil and gas prices so that our development plans would not face unexpected pressures nor our economic projects be affected by instabilities in the world markets.

      In addition to this fund, we will seek to establish a long term reserve that would enable our country to realize its ambitions and pursue the development and construction process.

Honourable Brothers,

      During the past year, we were concerned with updating and modernizing the educational and health structures which we started about a decade ago. We continued finalising the required measures to set the financial allocations for the education and health endowments – Waqf – which we referred to before you here last year, and which we will announce later on. They will be large allocations capable, with the Will of God, and continued persistence, to meet the expected expansion in the volume of demand on education and health services in future.

      With those two endowments, and another one under study and preparation in the field of culture, the State is trying to revive traditions of eras of enlightment in our Arab-Islamic history when Waqf was an effective development institution that realised its developmental role in guiding money spending, thus many landmarks of progress and construction in our region were made by the Waqfs.

      Today, my Brothers, as we revive those creative developmental traditions, we look forward to our private sector to follow suit of the State so that the private Waqf institutions in our country undertake what their counterparts in many of the advanced countries do, and contribute effectively to development, and participate in non-traditional ways in building Qatar of the future, directing part of their profits to spending on modern innovative projects needed by our country in many fields, among which are development of researches, and industries, since no matter how much the State might spend on development, it will always be happy to see its citizens reciprocate its offering by showing their keenness to participate to the advancement of the progress and production process.

      In this respect, the State will always be ready to coordinate with the business community in our country. To that end, it is open to thinking of creating mechanisms to organize and maximize the contributions of public and private waqfs to development.

Brothers, Members of the Advisory Council,

      On the arena of our relations with the world, the GCC will always be the first regional home for our country which despite the gap between our ambitions and the results we have, are continuosly prompted to endeavor to strengthen our relations with GCC member countries and enhance the bonds of fraternity and integration with them. We look forward to the next GCC Summit in the sisterly Kingdom of Bahrain, and are sure that the sponsorship of this Summit by His Majesty King Hamad Bin Issa Al-Khalifa would contribute to its success in reaching positive results.

      We feel it is time to discuss and review the strides made along the GCC march in all fields and determine what we have to do to sustain this march especially in the economic field which in our opinion still needs more clarity, positivity and practical implementation in order to realize the aspired cooperation and integration which would meet the aspirations and ambitions of the GCC citizens and boost development, security and stability and corroborate the common destiny.

Honourable Brothers,

      The State of Qatar has maintained underlining the importance of reform in the Arab region, and still believes it did not live up to the required comprehensive political, social and economic changes that protects the region against foreign penetration and opens the way for effective participation with the rest of the world in all affairs of the world order.

      If Arab countries have, recently vowed together to conclude new conventions that pointed to the significance of concord, solidarity and thorough reform and called for discarding division and bickering, since this could not be achieved just by making documents but by courageously siding with justice and correctness whether or not to our benefit without comity or prevarication that leads to endless issues we are not in need of particularly as our region has a lesson from many other documents previously concluded yet were not implemented as hoped when signing it. Such documents could have been turned into overwhelming Arab facts if popular participation had gained what it deserved.

      Addressing the urgent issues in our Arab World is still not up to the level expected and anticipated by many of its citizens.

      No longer prompt measures or instantaneous solutions are productive even if it succeeded in gaining little time or avoiding part of the pressures that were accumulated and built up since the agonizing events of September 11. At the end they are no more than painkillers not suitable for the nature of the challenges witnessed by the region which is in dire need of a sound treatment which starts with facing ourselves honestly and acknowledge the painful gap between what we aspired to and what we actually achieved, and to reconsider the potentials of our countries to fulfill much of the commitments pledged and agreements concluded amongst them in order not to come to the present point where we face crises that we are just able to confront with no more than sympathetic words.

      The tense regional circumstances being lived by the Arab region made reforming the Arab state of affairs an inevitable must for all, after it was clearly revealed that leaving the problems of any country to aggravate and build up without mending or rectifying would lead to the extension of its consequences to the rest of our Arab countries.

      So Iraq has reached a critical stage overshadowed with coulds which we hope will be driven away and is facing threats which hopefully would soon be overcome. Despite the national regional and international endeavors to bring the situation in Iraq back to normal yet stability there is still oscillating as whenever a door of tension is closed then another door is opened and the view gets more vague to a point calling for a new diagnosis that goes beyond the current moment to explore the outline of future in this brotherly country where Qatar has not lingered in supporting the Iraqi people to regain their natural right to stability and prosperity, hoping that their government would be able to implement the timetable of the Security Council Resolution No. 1546 on the holding of free and democratic elections and formulating a permanent constitution in time and forming a constitutionally elected government that meets the national aspirations of the brotherly people of Iraq.

      Yet Iraq is not the only Arab country whose future is unresolved, as the Palestinian issue is still fluctuating between closed scopes for peace and unfortunately other scopes open for the shedding of more blood of innocent Palestinians who in as much they deserve that Israel keep its destructive hand off them as they need each sincere helping hand continuously and not according to circumstances and requisites to recover their national established and legitimate rights according to international legality and secure for them the protection they still seek for more than half a century.

      Here also Sudan is working hard to address the complicated situation in Darfur region; the government has taken welcome positive steps and we appreciate their consent to work closely with the international community in order to reinstate law in this area so as to alleviate the sufferings of citizens there We appreciate in particular the Sudanese government cooperation with the African Union which proceeded to help the brethren in Sudan in various forms and at good levels which we hope the Arab efforts could reach.

      In this connection we also welcome the agreements signed to reach a peaceful settlement of the problem of Southern Sudan hoping that a final agreement between the two sides would be concluded shortly so that the Sudan would be free for the process of construction and development.

      As for Somalia, despite the success realized by the election of Mr. Abdulla Yousef Ahmed as a new President of his country, still this brotherly country has a course to proceed along to peace hoping that they would move forward until they reach a consensus on choosing a national government that represents all the citizens of Somalia , paves the way for getting back security and stability, and protects its unity independence, and sovereignty over its territories, and this actually needs a supporting Arab role at this critical stage.

      Since our Arab World has become fraught with challenges, it is our duty out of the spirit of responsible solidarity to encourage our brthern in Syria and Lebanon to deal with the developments related to the Security Council Resolution No. 1559 with a great deal of prudence and caution to maintain the two countries national security and stability and keep a central strategic arena in our Arab world away from a dangerous slide which is most unneeded.

Brothers,

      The Advisory Council, now in the fourth decade of its march, has completed a stage of its national work and is on the verge of a new stage that would be a land mark God Willing embodying the earnestness of our country in its pursuit to deepen popular participation in decision making and drawing general policies.

      May God bestow success on you.

May the peace, the mercy and blessings of God be upon you.