The campaign to reduce CO2 emissions in Qatar, which includes Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation’s (Kahramaa) ‘Green Car Initiative’, would get a further boost as the Alfardan Group is planning to import electric cars starting from 2019.

According to the Alfardan Group President and CEO Omar Hussain Alfardan, the group has been in discussion with concerned authorities and other stakeholders to add more charging stations in Qatar.

He said the Alfardan Group was involved in Phase 1 of Qatar’s first electric car charging station project launched in February this year by Kahramaa as part of its ‘Green Car Initiative’.

The project, in co-operation with Siemens Qatar and Alfardan Automobiles, was formally launched by Kahramaa President Essa bin Hilal al-Kuwari at the Kahramaa Awareness Park (KAP) in Al Thumama, which holds the first electric car charging station in Qatar.

The project’s Phase 1 is a collaboration of the Tarsheed programme, Siemens Qatar, and Alfardan Group, under which the Alfardan Real Estate Group will be providing three electric car charging stations at some of its most prominent properties, according to a statement made earlier on in the year.

“With companies that we are already associated with like Siemens, we’ve started installing a few charging stations for electric cars as part of a project that was inaugurated in the presence of His Excellency (H.E.) the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti and H.E. the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr. Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada.

“We have just been in discussion and we are looking forward to increasing the number of charging stations in Qatar, and starting 2019 - 2020, we are going to import electric cars to Qatar. We have a co-investment in that platform to import electric cars, and we have already invested in some charging stations in our properties in Qatar,” Alfardan told Gulf Times on the sidelines of the ‘Qatar-Germany Business and Investment Forum' held recently in Berlin, Germany.

He added: “We are leading the market. We are the first to import electric cars to Qatar and that’s only the start, so we will see more of this in the future…the charging stations fit all manufacturers, so whoever does this takes the lead.”

When asked about Alfardan Group’s initiatives on sustainable development and the protection of the environment, Alfardan said it is involved in many corporate social responsibility and environment-conscious programmes.

“We are very much active in a lot of environment-friendly initiatives. We took the lead; our new project merger in Lusail will be inaugurated in the beginning of next year. It has LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green certification, and we will move more and more towards that direction,” he said.

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Nabeela

Content Writer

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