Doha - President Borut Pahor met Khalifa Al-Kuwari, general manager of the Qatar Fund for Development, on Thursday, the second and last day of his official visit to Qatar. Pahor was also the keynote speaker at the opening of a Slovenia-Qatar economic cooperation forum, the president's office said.

Pahor is visiting Qatar at the invitation of Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, whom he met on Wednesday. The pair assessed there were many opportunities to further strengthen bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

Today's meeting with Al-Kuwari was dedicated to efforts to boost cooperation between the fund and the Slovenian humanitarian organisation ITF Enhancing Human Security.

Pahor thanked Al-Kuwari for Qatar's contribution to the establishment of the Ljubljana mosque. He expressed his support for the work of ITF and his hope that talks between the organisation and the fund on projects will be successful and that the two will be able to work more closely together on humanitarian projects.

At the opening of the international forum, organised by the Qatar Leadership centre, Pahor noted the Emir of Qatar's decision to visit Slovenia soon. Even before that, a Qatari business delegation will visit Slovenia to explore concrete forms of cooperation.

The president said that Slovenia wished to strengthen cooperation with Qatar in all areas, with energy, sustainable development, tourism, investment, culture and sports providing most opportunities for that.

Pahor is accompanied in Qatar by Infrastructure Minister Jernej Vrtovec, who discussed possibilities for cooperation on natural gas supplies to reduce Slovenia's dependence on Russia's gas. The Slovenian delegation also includes Environment Minister Andrej Vizjak.