QATAR will host an Arab stamps museum in 2010 when the Cultural and Heritage Village at West Bay is expected to be ready, Q-Post chairman and chief executive Ali Mohamed al-Ali said yesterday. The Arab League, which oversees the operations of the museum now located in Cairo, has agreed to transfer its entire collection to Qatar, al-Ali said. The Cairo museum has more than 280,000 stamps. The decision to hand over the collection to Qatar was taken recently at a high-level meeting of the Arab League, supported by all 22 member countries, he said. The chairman said the stamps museum was first set up in Dubai. When the Arab Postal Union was established, the collection was transferred to Cairo. Now Qatar would have the honour of hosting it. The chairman said philately activities in Qatar and the region were expected to get a boost with the establishment of the museum at the Cultural and Heritage Village. He also recalled the postal corporation’s efforts in the last two years in hosting major exhibitions of Arab stamps, involving postal corporations of the region. Al-Ali also said Qatar had a number of serious stamp collectors, which was evident from the response that exhibitions held in Doha had received in the last few years. The chairman said some of the stamps that Qatar had brought out over the years for special occasions had won praise from the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the apex body of postal corporations worldwide, and other international organisations. Q-Post’s World Cup Football collections, featuring stamps of every edition of the event, was a big hit among Europeans in the year prior to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, he said. “We are still getting inquiries for huge print orders,” he added. Q-Post would make a similar launch for the next World Cup Football in South Africa. “We have studied the market well in advance and it is certain to pick up sales prior to the event to be held in 2010,” he said. http://gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=261549&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16

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