US-Ukrainian IT Firms Meet Qatari Officials to Explore Opportunities in Gulf Region

Representatives from 10 US IT companies with offices in Ukraine had gathered in Doha, Qatar, to establish partnership relations and cooperation with representatives of the Qatari government and local businesses to foster IT service exports in the region.

The companies include EPAM, Sigma Software, ELEKS, Computools, Intellias, AltexSoft, NIX, Global Logic and Tripmaker.

The Feb. 14-15 meeting, aimed to facilitate further integration of IT specialists into the IT ecosystem of the Persian Gulf countries and enhance the digital service exports from Ukraine and countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

According to the organizer StrategEast, they were prompted to hold the event by Qatar’s great interest in the well-developed IT industry in Ukraine.

Anatoliy Motkin, president of StrategEast, said the “mutually beneficial exchange” would open new doors for Ukrainian IT specialists and provide the Gulf region with alternatives on par with Silicon Valley.

“Since a huge number of leading American IT companies have their research and development centers in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, the largest companies in Qatar have the opportunity to obtain software and digital services of the level of Silicon Valley directly from high-level specialists who are territorially closer to the countries Gulf states than American offices of companies,” said Motkin.

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Motkin said IT expertise in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus provided Gulf states with the best alternative to traditional options, and the “mutually beneficial exchange” would allow Ukrainian IT specialists to open a new export direction and provide them with new markets to support the Ukrainian economy.

An agreement was reached for the Qatar Financial Center to promote the opening of new offices of Ukrainian IT companies in Qatar, providing techno giants with Ukrainian specialists in “soft-landing” and access to the “single window” service in Qatar.

According to Valery Krasovsky, CEO and co-founder of Sigma Software, Qatar is ready to promote cooperation with foreign companies in the digital services field with representative offices in Ukraine.

“It was a productive visit, and we felt that Qatari partners need advanced digital technologies, electronic services, and innovative products. So it's a great opportunity for global companies like Google and Microsoft that are already here.

“And it is also an opportunity for modern companies that produce IT products and services to help global corporations in digitalization,” said Krasovsky.

StrategEast is a leading independent organization working on developing Eurasia's digital economy in cooperation with international financial institutions, development agencies, global technology companies and Eurasian governments. StrategEast is a non-profit organization with offices in the USA, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.