DOHA: Marcegaglia, a leading Italian industrial group, will lead a high-level delegation to Qatar on January 5, 2010. The delegation, led by Antonio Marcegaglia, CEO of Marcegaglia Group, will meet the Minister of Business and Foreign Trade H E Khaled bin Mohammed Al Attiyah on Wednesday.

Italy and Qatar are strengthening their commercial ties and in the past years an increasing number of Italian businessmen have chosen Qatar as their preferred hub in the Middle East.

Ever since 2007, Italy has been one of the major exporter to Qatar, along with the US, Japan and Germany. The first quarter of 2009 saw around €663.3m trade dealings between the two countries. Italy's major exports to Qatar include mainly metals and mechanical appliances.