The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), one of the world's leading and fastest growing onshore business and financial centres, ended the year on a high note with an unprecedented growth of 33% in 2019 with close to 200 firms being registered to the platform.

Qatar Airways Cargo announced the expansion of its cargo network in Asia Pacific with the launch of a twice weekly Boeing 777 freighter service to Osaka, Japan effective 14th January 2020.

Qatar Airways announced a codeshare partnership with Deutsche Bahn (German railways), offering Qatar Airways travelers seamless connection to and from eight key destinations in Germany.

HE. Mr. Mohammed Sultan Al Kuwari, Consul General of the State of Qatar in Hong Kong, met on Friday, 10 January 2020 with Mr. Daniel Lam, the Regional director, the Middle East and Africa of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

The manufacturing industries sector has seen a considerable growth within the past five years in terms of the number of facilities and production fields. The volume of industrial investments amounted to QR 13 bn ($3.5bn), with the establishment of more than 380 new industrial facilities, said a statement issued by Qatar Chamber.

HE President of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly Dr. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande underlined that ten years are sufficient to implement the Sustainable Developments Goals 2030, stressing that the State of Qatar plays a pivotal role in all axes of these goals and has achieved a lot, not only with regard to the commitment to support the United Nations organizations, but also by laying the foundations for supporting other countries and helping many countries and civil society institutions in need.

Qatar University, in cooperation with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, will host the activities of the IEEE International Conference on Informatics, IoT, and Enabling Technologies (ICIoT'20) to be held between February 2 and 5, within the framework of the World Congress on Engineering organized by the University's College of Engineering.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has praised the excellent organization of FIFA Club World Cup 2019, which is being hosted by Qatar and will end with a final between Liverpool and Flamengo at the Khalifa International Stadium tomorrow.

HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani participated Thursday in the opening session of the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019, which carries the theme The Role of Development in Achieving National Sovereignty. HM King Abdullah Riayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah of Malaysia, HE President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, HE President of Iran Dr. Hassan Rouhani, and HE Prime Minister of Malaysia Dr. Mahathir Mohammed participated in the summit.

The State of Qatar has signed four agreements with the United Nations, in the presence of HE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, on the sidelines of the 19th Doha Forum, which concluded recently in Doha.