Possible move from Europe to Qatar

Hi there!
There's a possibility of my moving from Europe to Doha, Qatar within the next 6 months or so.
My field of work is pretty niche - specialised risk modelling for insurance & reinsurance. Now, this is one of those lines of work similar to an actuary but without those exams. It is also a field that typically commands a much higher salary than average.

I've got about 5 years experience exclusively in this area and about 3 in general IT (quite useful for the risk modelling field though). That's 8 years work ex in all.

Now, my salary with benefits etc is in the vicinity of GBP 70,000 and the guys in Doha are shocked (or pretending to be). Apparently, they had much more economical ideas or maybe because I'm an Indian national (stereotypically low-cost).
To me exceeding this salary should be feasible given that the role is supervisory and reporting to the CEO of that division/company.

Would anybody here know why they are shocked and what might be a reasonable salary to negotiate given that the role looks really good? Tax rates where I live in Europe are low - around the 12% ballpark.

Best, Perry.