Doha, Qatar
10 April 2017

Qatar Finance and Business Academy (QFBA), in cooperation with ADNAR Group, today announced hosting the 34th International Competition for the Global Management Challenge (GMC), which runs from 10 to 12 April 2017. An awards ceremony will be held on 12th of April at Hotel Shangrila Doha, whereas, competition is being held in Hotel Rotana City.

The 2016 edition of GMC’s International Final will see strong competition between teams from countries including Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Kuwait, Macao, Mexico , Morocco, People's Republic of China, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, and United Arab Emirates.

The GMC was founded in Portugal in 1980. In Qatar, it was launched in 2013. Teams representing around 24 countries including Qatar are participating in the 1st Int'l competition hosted by Qatar is also first time in the region. The competing teams have previously won the championship title in their homeland or regionally, and are now participating in Doha to compete for the international title. The winning team will be announced on Wednesday, 12 April 2017. In recent years, the winners of the International Finals have been from Eastern European countries, especially Russia and Ukraine. While Macau won the prestigious title in the 2007 edition, the People's Republic of China claimed the title several times and is one of the strongest competitors.

On the first day, the semi-finals will take place, where the participating teams will be divided into four groups. They will be given information about the company they will manage, and they should make five sets of decisions that day. In the final round, which starts the following day, the best two teams from each group will compete, and the best of the eight finalists will be crowned as the International GMC Winner of the Year.

Press Conference was addressed by Randa Haidar, Managing Director of ADNAR Group, Dr. Abdul Aziz Al Horr, CEO of QFBA, Luis Alves Costa, Founder of the Global Management Challenge, João Matoso Henriques, CEO, Global Management Challenge Int'l and Mian Muneer ud din, Managing Partner at Beaufort Associates FZ-LLC, the upcoming host of the International Final – to be held in Dubai.

Dr. Abdul Aziz Al Horr, CEO of QFBA (organizing partner), said “We are honored to be hosting the International Finals of the Global Management Challenge (GMC) – in collaboration with ADNAR Group – for the first time in Qatar and the Arab world in the competition’s history, which was launched 36 years ago. QFBA aims to deliver a global event that brings added value to the previous GMC International Finals that took place in some of the world's largest capitals, and we are very excited to welcome the winning national teams in Doha.”

Luis Alves Costa said ' We hope that this event will contribute to the personal development and growth of future business leaders in Qatar'.

Randa Haidar, Regional Organizer of the event said ' As an enterprise, we realize the different aspects of the requirements and needs of international and local businesses. Which is why, ADNAR Group will make every effort to transform this exceptional event into an extraordinary success'.

Mian Muneer ud din, Managing Partner at Beaufort Associates FZ-LLC, the upcoming host of the International Final to be held in Dubai in 2018 said: “The ‘challenge’ competition will contribute to the development of the participants’ strategic management skills that are associated with all operations within the company, which is classified as one of the various human resource development training programs, in order to qualify and educate employees and students, thereby contributing to raising the efficiency of work and achieving job satisfaction.”

The competition went global back in 1981 in Brazil, and since then has continued to grow and spread until it
reached the aforementioned number of countries participating in the finals.

To date, more than 500,000 participants from all over the world, including university administrators and students, have taken part in the GMC competition. Companies and universities around the world consider the challenge to be an excellent training in strategy and management, since participants in this competition must work as a team and make decisions on a wide range of issues within their companies to get the best results.

The GMC competition is considered the biggest in the area of strategy and management for all the countries involved. The competition is constantly being updated to be the most sophisticated and realistic business simulation contest.