Saudi offers size in drive to list shares of foreign companies

riyadh — Saudi Arabia aims to start listing foreign companies on its stock market as soon as this year as it seeks to become a regional centre for equity issuance, said Mohammed Abdullah Elkuwaiz, vicechairman of the Capital Market Authority. The plan shows the wide scope of the kingdom’s drive to diversify its economy beyond hydrocarbon exports as oil prices slump.

For the last couple of years, the regulator has focused on opening the market to foreign investors, on the grounds that their involvement would make Saudi companies more efficient.

Qualified foreign institutions (QFIs) were allowed to begin investing directly in Saudi stocks in 2015 and qualification requirements were eased last year. The CMA has also been revising rules to help the Saudi market enter international equity indexes, which would bring more foreign money.

Elkuwaiz said in an interview late on Wednesday that those measures were now largely complete so the regulator was focusing on the other part of its reform mandate: making Riyadh a centre for capital-raising by companies in the Gulf and perhaps further afield. — Reuters