HS940140 – Qatar

Context:

Market import demand observations for this product:

Qatar’s import demand shows that it is growing in both the short and long term, but relative to other global markets it is a small market. Note that Qatar does not have an absolute positive growth trend for this product over the period under consideration. While this is still an opportunity, it may be in a declining phase for the import of this particular product.

Competition in the market for this product:

A market’s willingness to trade on a product with a variety of supplying countries is an indication that such a market may be more accessible to new alternative suppliers (such as from South Africa in this instance). Historical import patterns for Qatar specifically demonstrate that Qatar is trading with various alternative supplying countries for this product and hence this fact contributes to a more favourable evaluation of this opportunity from a market access perspective. However, Turkey is a major supplier (at 56.1%) (see Competitors section for more details).

Access to market in terms of relative logistics and tariff costs

In relative terms, for this product, Qatar is relatively accessible from South Africa in terms of the combination of logistics and tariff costs, compared to other markets for the same product. Qatar’s import tariff level for this product from South Africa is not zero, but set at a relatively low rate of 5.0% at the time of evaluation (the effective level may change in real-time and always needs to be confirmed before final decision making).

Market growth strategy for this product:

If a company’s strategy is to focus on relatively small but growing markets; Qatar may be an ideal market to enter, understanding that larger volumes may only arise in future. This market may pose opportunity for smaller volume export producers.

Existing relationships with target market for this product:

South Africa to date has supplied none or relatively little of Qatar’s import demand specifically for this product which means:

The first chart displays South Africa’s export value of the product (if South Africa historically did export this product to Qatar) contrasted relative to the overall trend of this product’s import value (dashed brown line) into Qatar over the last 5 years. The estimated ‘untapped’ potential for Qatar (the solid green bar displayed in first chart) is also shown relative to the target market’s total imports (dashed brown line) as well as existing exports from South Africa(solid blue line). In this instance the estimated ‘untapped’ potential associated with this opportunity is estimated to be 11.47 Million ZAR. In the second chart the value of existing trade between South Africa and Qatar are shown in finer resolution.

While the preceding analysis indicated that Qatar generally trades with a variety of supplying countries for this product, the following information provides more detail on the potential competing countries that currently are major suppliers of the product into Qatar. South Africa is ranked in position 22 in recent times (out of a total supplier base of 28 countries serving this market’s existing import demand for this particular product, evaluated on a 5-year time-weighted basis). Note that South Africa is always placed in the last position of the chart (before ‘Rest’), irrespective of its actual position as supplier of this product into the target market, while only the main competitors are shown for context. In the event that South Africa does not appear on the chart at all it means there exists no record of recent exports from South Africa to Qatar.