Qatar will soon announce a defence production plant as the gas-rich Gulf nation looks to boost domestic defence capabilities.
Defence Minister Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman said Qatar would team up with a regional partner and other countries such as the US, UK and France “to make sure either we do local protection or we are investing in some of these companies”, Reuters reported on Monday.
Sheikh Saoud was speaking at the Global Security Forum in Doha.
The announcement comes after Qatar and other Gulf countries have come under heavy attack during the Iran war, with energy sites and civilian infrastructure suffering damage.
Parts of Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City – which supplies one fifth of the world's liquefied natural gas – was destroyed, with the Gulf nation declaring long-term force majeure on contracts with some buyers across the globe.
"It is possible that the plant will continue to build on regional efforts by some states of increasingly localised defence production, including arms and components," Zain Hussain, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute told The National.
He added Qatar was the world's fourth-largest importer of arms between 2021 and 2025 and is relying heavily on its imports for its arms capabilities.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s two largest economies, are already investing in domestic defence capabilities, with Edge Group and the kingdom’s Saudi Arabian Military Industries (Sami) playing a key role.
Edge systems, including jammers, were successful in eliminating 85 per cent of Iranian drones that have been launched at the UAE during the Iran war, Hamad Al Marar, the group's managing director and chief executive, told The National in an interview at the Make it in the Emirates event in Abu Dhabi in May.
Edge, set up in 2019, specialises in building advanced technology for weapons systems, cyber protection and electronic warfare, with more than 35 companies under its umbrella.
Military spending in the Middle East has continued to rise as regional conflicts rage, a report from Sipri has found, increasing to an estimated $218 billion in 2025, up 0.1 per cent compared to previous year. However, it had increased by 36 per cent over the decade from 2016 to 2025, the Sipri report said.
The region’s largest spender in 2025 was Saudi Arabia, with estimated expenditure of $83.2 billion. Its spending was 1.4 per cent higher than in 2024 and 12 per cent higher than in 2016.
Qatar’s lack of industrial and supply chain depth is a key structural constraint to set up any major defence production venture, Albert Vidal Ribe, a research associate for Middle East defence industry and procurement at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said.
“If anything, I could see Qatar announcing the local production of UAV interceptors, relatively simple systems that could be realistically produced locally and would bolster Qatar’s counter-drone defences.”
Qatar set up Barzan Holdings a decade ago but “has little to show in terms of meaningful localised defence manufacturing”, with its subsidiaries producing rifles and small calibre ammunition, he added.
