Doha, June 03 (QNA) - Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) issued itsآ 2024 Annual Report on Tuesday, which highlights its key achievements and activities over the past year.

The report shed light on the regulatory developments of the Qatari capital market during 2024, in addition to the key procedures, initiatives, and legislation related to the QFMA's competencies and the capital market activity.

The QFMA annual report is a comprehensive reference that reflects the QFMA's commitment to developing an attractive and sustainable investment environment that contributes to achieving Qatar National Vision (QNV) 2030. The report also addressed the QFMA's most important contributions and activities, in addition to its participation in various local and international meetings and conferences related to the capital market in 2024. The report also presented the QFMA's efforts in promoting transparency and stability in the Qatari market, protecting investors and enhancing their confidence in the market.

QFMA continued to perform its tasks and duties and implement its powers and competencies during 2024, in continuation of its essential role in maintaining a strong, regulated and competitive capital market in the State, based on its flexibility, and its constant adherence to strict international standards in investor protection, market surveillance, and QFMA development to be able to keep pace with all developments and changes taking place in the world's most advanced capital markets.

During 2024, QFMA continued to work on developing the legislative and investment environment and supporting the digital transformation of the Qatari capital market infrastructure, reflecting its interest in innovation and sustainability to remain at the core of the QFMA's strategy 2023-2027 aimed at strengthening Qatar's position as a leading hub for foreign investments attraction and capital investment in the region.

Regulating capital markets and issuing legislation are at the core of the key tasks and competencies of QFMA. The close link between tasks and competencies represents the first and main pillar of the QFMA's aspirations to ensure the continued development of the Qatari capital market and to consolidate its stability in a way that provides dealers and investors with an attractive and stimulating investment environment that will advance the market to developed levels that enable it to compete strongly at the regional and global levels.

With the aim of enhancing the QFMA's role in regulating the financial market and licensed and listed companies, QFMA issued a number of legislations during 2024, including the issuance of Insider Trading Rules, Controls of Company's Buyback of its Own Shares with the Intent of Selling, while amendments done for some provisions of the decisions including Ownership of Shares in Listed Companies on QSE, Rules of Dividend Distribution in Shareholding Companies Listed on the Financial Markets, and Controls of Company's Buyback of its Own Shares with the Intent of Selling.

The report affirmed that QFMA's responsibility is based on ensuring that companies meet the requirements for offering and listing, acquisition and merger requirements, and verifying adequate disclosure in their submitted documents. During 2024, QFMA also worked on developing these requirements through developing Offering and Listing of Securities Rulebook, where all related rules were merged into one rulebook, in addition to developing some policies and procedures in line with the best international practices to support the development of the capital market in line with the QFMA's strategy and the financial sector, and the Rulebook is being developed in preparation for its issuance. During 2024, 55 government debt instruments were listed, as Treasury Bills and Debt Bonds, with a total nominal value of QAR 51 billion. 

During 2024, QFMA received 5 applications related to the acquisition and merger activity, and 5 acquisitions were completed worth (QAR 583 million). Such transactions varied between indirect acquisitions inside the State (QAR 43 million) and outside the State (QAR 540 million), and included many sectors such as: Industrials, Transportation, Banks and Financial Services.

QFMA is a key entity in the State working in enhancing the investment environment. Therefore, it plays a pivotal role in protecting investors, ensuring the stability and growth of capital markets, by establishing the highest levels of integrity and transparency, and ensuring that all concerned parties' compliance with the legislative and legal standards and controls aimed at regulating trading operations in the market, which enhances confidence in the Qatari economy and promote attracting more local and foreign investments and capital.

During 2024, QFMA conducted a comprehensive assessment of the procedures followed by listed companies to ensure their compliance with the requirements of the Governance Code for Companies and Legal Entities in the Main Market issued by QFMA's Board Decision No. 5 of 2016. QFMA received 48 corporate governance reports for 2023 issued by the listed companies in addition to receiving the reports of the independent external auditor related to the company's compliance with the Corporate Governance Code and relevant legislation.

The overall compliance percentage of all companies with the articles of the CG Code for 2022 reached 99 percent, the highest percentage of compliance by sector was for Transportation and Telecoms, where all companies are fully committed to 100 percent for 2023, and the lowest percentage of compliance by sector for 2023 was 98 percent for Industrials.

As part of QFMA's efforts to enhance transparency, improve the investor culture and the business environment in the country, and build a stable and attractive investment environment that guarantees the rights of all concerned parties, which contributes to the growth of the national economy, the Disclosure Section monitored, followed up, and analyzed the disclosures of listed companies during 2024, analyzed their financial data, monitored the quality of disclosures, and ensured their compliance with relevant legislation and regulations.

According to the report, during 2024, the Disciplinary Committee held 15 hearing sessions, registered 8 violations in the Committee's record, and 13 violations were adjudicated, and the amount value of violations amounted to QAR 5.690 million. For QFMA, the surveillance process is an essential factor in enhancing confidence between investors and capital markets.

The QFMA's strong and effective role in this field reflects its approach to creating a safe, stable and stimulating investment environment, and contributes to achieving the desired economic diversity.

The report addressed the QFMA's efforts in the field of combating illicit financing, combating the causes of the original crimes of capital markets' ML/FT, and the commitment of licensed entities to the AML/CFT requirements.

As part of the State's AML/CFT system, QFMA works through cooperation and exchange of information with national authorities, including supervisory and regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies in a timely and effective manner, in addition to the agreements of understanding signed with national authorities, including the Financial Information Unit (FIU).

QFMA is making continuous efforts to enhance its digital infrastructure and develop financial information systems, in line with national and global trends towards digital transformation and ensuring capital markets stability and security.

In the field of information systems development, the report pointed out that the key works done by QFMA during 2024 was the launch of the "Market Data System", which stores and classifies data, issues reports and dashboards required by QFMA's Trading Surveillance Section and the concerned department. QFMA internal portal was also launched, which is a platform on the QFMA's internal network available to its employees and provides a central place to access documents, applications, announcements, news and internal services provided by the QFMA's support departments such as human resources services, information systems services and admin services. The institutional project management system was also launched to follow up on the implementation of the "QFMA's Strategic Plan 2023-2027."

The QFMA's Strategic Plan 2023-2027 includes six strategic objectives and 63 initiatives. The system links initiatives to strategic objectives and details of all initiatives and tasks included under each initiative are entered. The system automatically follows up on the progress of these tasks through alerts and reports that can be extracted from the system. The system also provides dashboards that enable decision-makers to follow up and make appropriate decisions.

Phase I of the "Implementation of the National Cybersecurity Framework" project was also implemented, in addition to developing SIEM Solutions Technological solutions to help detect and analyze cybersecurity risks, PROXY Solution to protect QFMA employees when browsing the internet and prevent access to suspicious websites and EDR to protect QFMA office devices and address potential attacks thereon.

Within the framework of cooperation between QFMA and the National Cybersecurity Agency, the Information Systems Department Team, in cooperation with a team from the National Cybersecurity Agency, issues information security standards for QFMA's licensed entities.

Developing and building human capital capacity is one of the key pillars of upgrading the level of work, performance, and achievement. The continuous development of human resources will ensure outputs in line with the QFMA's aspirations and ambitions as well its strategic plan. Thus, QFMA pays more concern on developing human capital capacity, to enhance its competitive capabilities, and is also working to increase jobs Qatarization percentage and assign national competencies in various departments and sections. (QNA)