Arab
News, Wednesday, May 17, 2023 | Shawwal 27, 1444
AH
Saudi financial market outperforms G20 counterparts in 2022:report
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s financial market led its counterparts in other G20
countries in 2022 in terms of shareholders’ rights and stock market
capitalization as a percentage of gross domestic product, according to the
Capital Market Authority.
The shareholder’s rights as a percentage of GDP give a sense of the
influence that they have on the economy, while the stock market
capitalization-GDP ratio indicates the size of the stock market in relation to
the country’s economy.
In its annual report for 2022, the authority stated that the rate of
public offerings in the Saudi capital market advanced to a new high, with a
portion of 37 businesses’ shares offered for sale in the main and parallel
markets for a total of SR40 billion ($10.6 billion).
Some 13 firms’ shares were registered for a direct listing on the
parallel market in the same context.
Saudi’s capital market was dubbed “resilient” in February by Wassim
Alkhatib, CEO of Lazard Investment Banking for the Middle East and North Africa,
as he talked of the unprecedented global challenges that countries around the
world had faced in 2022.
“The CMA is creating the potential required to provide a suitable and
encouraging environment for the capital market system to positively reflect on
the Kingdom’s economy,” Mohammed bin Abdullah Elkuwaiz, chairman of the CMA said
in the report.
In terms of foreign ownership, the main market witnessed record net
foreign investment levels in 2022, amounting to about SR184 billion.
By the end of 2022, foreign investors’ ownership value in the main market
totaled SR347 billion, which represents 14 percent of the free float total
value.
According to the regulator, since the Saudi market joined the MSCI
Emerging Markets Index in 2019, the pace of growth in foreign investment last
year was the highest.
The CMA approved three new operational regulations — Securities Exchanges
and Depository Centers Regulations, Instructions on Direct Financing Investment
Funds, and Instructions for Shariah Governance in Capital Market Institutions.
Additionally, the authority altered seven implementing regulations,
rules, and guidelines.
Some 91 licenses were the subject of inspections, which were broken down
into 53 cycle inspections and 38 cause inspections.
On the control level, thorough investigations into possible trading
violations increased by 17.7 percent to 859 instances in 2022 from 730 cases in
2021, yielding 11 suspected cases and 152 control inquiries, the CMA reported.
Elkuwaiz emphasized that such accomplishments are the result of the hard
work and dedication of all employees aiming to place the Kingdom in its rightful
place and achieve the CMA’s strategic objectives.
These objectives include ranking the Saudi market as the leader in the
Middle East and placing it among the top 10 capital markets globally, in line
with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
Complaints received fell 15.7 percent to 12,118, with 11,354 settled and
512 referred to the Committee for the Resolution of Securities Disputes, while
252 are under review.
On the legal level, the total compensation ordered by the CRSD in its
final rulings was SR1.75 billion, a rise of 377.7 percent from 2021.