Qatar launches GCC's largest online financial resource

The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) Authority has launched the Gulf’s largest online financial resource, in the latest bid to reposition the Arab state as a leading knowledge-based economy.

The QFinance portal features contributions from more than 300 financial experts, alongside 103 country and 26 sector profiles, and is designed to be a one-stop reference guide for financial professionals and business students.

“This is the culmination of three years’ work,” said Stuart Pearce, CEO and director general of the QFC Authority.

“It’s a serious piece of work. It’s the repository of 300 people’s work and experience and it’s come out of Qatar. It represents what Qatar is all about.”

The website and accompanying book are part of a seven-year deal between QFC Authority and Bloomsbury Publishing. A further five editions of the book are planned, and will be issued annually. The website, which is free to access, will be updated daily, said Bloomsbury CEO Nigel Newton.

“The timing of this publication comes at a unique moment, when there is a hunger to understand what has happened to us,” he said. “We’ve all experienced global contagion that knows no bounds. Finance has more in common than what separates one region from another.”

He declined to reveal details of the deal with QFC Authority.

“The finances of QFinance will remain a ‘Q’ – a question,” he said.

A Bloomsbury spokeswoman said there were no plans to pitch the website against established financial publications, and confirmed the site would not produce daily news feeds, or market tracking.

“We’re not looking to rival the FT or the Economist, thought we may partner with them at a later date,” she said.

Contributors to the database include the Nobel Prize winner Mohammad Yunus; Jim O’Neill, chief global economist at Goldman Sachs; Justin Yifu Lin, chief economist at the World Bank and ex-Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Stuttard.

The initial 2,160-page book is in English, but Bloomsbury is in talks to translate it into Arabic, German and other languages. The firm has already sold the Chinese rights to the book.

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