OTTAWA — Qatar is ready to boost its business with Canada beyond the current $325 million in annual bilateral merchandise trade, the Gulf country’s new envoy to Ottawa told The Logic as officials with its sovereign wealth fund prepare to visit this spring.

“I think it’s worth mentioning that we have better capacity than that—both countries,” Qatari Ambassador Tariq Ali Faraj Hashim Al Ansari said in a recent interview. “Our aim is to increase that.”

In Doha last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada and Qatar expect to secure a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement by this summer. The two countries also agreed to start negotiating a double taxation deal. Both could make it easier for the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) to back major infrastructure projects in Canada, helping fulfill Carney’s goal of attracting funding from non-traditional allies amid the U.S. trade war. 

Representatives from the QIA, a sovereign wealth fund with a reported US$580 billion in assets, are set to visit Canada sometime after Ramadan, which ends in mid-March, to scope out investment opportunities. It will be their second trip in as many years.

“There is a lengthy process, but we are doing our best to make it short,” Al Ansari said of efforts to wrap up the investment agreement following years of stalled negotiations. “This agreement is a prerequisite for both countries in order to have investment—Qatari investment here in Canada and Canadian investment in Qatar.” The QIA also depends on this agreement being in place, he said. “I think it’s happening because there is a will between the two leaderships of the two countries.”

Qatar’s foreign direct investment in Canada amounted to $298 million in 2024, which was about four per cent of the amount that its neighbour, the United Arab Emirates, directed to Canada that year. The federal government expects that figure to grow as the QIA is pursuing investments in infrastructure, renewable energy and technology—including artificial intelligence—as it diversifies beyond natural gas, although it still expects a windfall from recent project expansions. 

Last September, QIA bought a four per cent stake in Canada’s mining company Ivanhoe Mines for US$500 million. In December, the sovereign wealth fund’s AI-focused subsidiary, Qai, joined Brookfield Asset Management’s AI fund to invest US$20 billion for a compute centre in Qatar.

On Sunday, Qatar announced the QIA is adding another US$2 billion to the US$1 billion fund-of-funds program it launched in 2024 to strengthen its startup ecosystem as part of that diversification push. Last month, Bloomberg reported the QIA is thinking about splitting its domestic portfolio from its overseas holdings, which include a stake in Volkswagen and ownership of the Harrods department store in London, to grow its global footprint.

Mohammed Al-Sowaidi, the CEO of the QIA, has committed to investing at least US$500 billion in the U.S. over the next 10 years. The fund has not said how much it intends to direct to Canada, although Carney said Jan. 18 in Doha that Qatar promised to make “significant strategic investments” in Canada’s major projects. “This capital will help the projects get built faster and supercharge our energy industries,” he said, “while helping to create thousands of high-paying careers for Canadians.”

Al Ansari, who arrived in Ottawa just last month after two years as Qatar’s ambassador to Egypt, said the QIA has industry-specific “implementing agencies” focused on mining, agriculture, hospitality, real estate, energy and seaports that will shape investment in Canada. “I think these visits are very important to decide where we are going and where we are heading,” he said.

Qatar is an autocratic country that has been accused of exploiting migrant workers, discriminating against women and LGBTQ people and severely restricting free expression within its own borders. Abroad, however, it has been exercising soft power. It chose to highlight Canada and Mexico—co-hosts with the U.S. of this year’s men’s FIFA World Cup—for the 2026 edition of its “Years of Culture” program aimed at increasing understanding between Qataris and people in other countries. Qatar, which hosted the global soccer tournament in 2022, had already celebrated the U.S. in 2021. 

“By building this bridge, we are complementing what the governments are doing,” said Al Ansari. He mused about setting up a Qatari cultural centre in Ottawa, similar to what the country has done in Berlin and Washington, D.C. “We can show the way and build bridges between people.”

The federal government has highlighted the role that Qatar has played in helping Canada’s diplomatic efforts in the Middle East over the years, such as helping evacuate Canadians from Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover in 2021 and escape Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war. 

Al Ansari brings up Qatar’s role as a “natural mediator” when asked about the speech Carney gave at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which the prime minister urged middle powers to stick together despite the “rupture” of the international rules-based order. “We are happy to be a connector, a bridge of mediation and understanding between all the parties,” Al Ansari said.

Clarification: This story has been updated to accurately describe Qatar’s political system.