Saudi Arabia’s capital market demonstrated strong performance in 2022, with the number of listings reaching 49 in 2022. This is 204 percent higher than the initial target of 24.
Mohammed Elkuwaiz shared the news in a statement coinciding with Saudi’s 93rd National Day. Elkuwaiz sits as the chairman of the Saudi Capital Market Authority (CMA) Board.
He expressed, “By the end of 2022, CMA was able to achieve higher completion rates than the targets of its strategic plan for the same year in a number of indicators.”
Target-exceeding performance
Apart from the listings, CMA also announced that Saudi witnessed robust growth in terms of its stock market value. The value of the said market as a percentage of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) hit 91 percent. This surpasses the initial target of 77 percent.
Additionally, the country also exceeded its goal for its debt instruments market.
“The strategic plan targeted the size of the debt instruments market as a percentage of the domestic product to reach 18.7 percent while what was achieved amounted to 32 percent, with a completion rate of 171 percent,” the CMA Board’s chairman revealed.
With these figures, Elkuwaiz described the market as a role model in the region. Looking forward, the CMA is now working on its strategic plan from 2024 to 2026.
According to him, the plan aims “to achieve sustainable development of the financial sector, and new achievements and records, which will reflect positively on the financial market in particular and the financial sector in general.”
Read: Saudi GDP passes $1.1 trn, tops G20 nations
A more competitive Saudi
As Saudi commemorated its National Day, the country also saw more economic and financial achievements.
As shared by Elkuwaiz in his statement, Saudi climbed seven places in the World Competitiveness Yearbook published by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) for 2023. It took the 17th spot among 64 countries measured for global competitiveness.
Among G20 nations, it ranked third. G20 is an intergovernmental forum with 19 sovereign countries, the European Union, and the African Union as its members.
On the same list, the United Arab Emirates ranked 10th overall while Qatar secured the 12th spot. Meanwhile, Bahrain and Kuwait occupied the 25th and 38th places, respectively. The most globally competitive countries are Denmark, Ireland, and Switzerland.
Better financial indicators
Elkuwaiz noted that Saudi’s ranking particularly improved in six out of twelve indicators linked with the financial market.
In terms of the number of investment funds, Saudi saw its figures reach an all-time high, hitting 1,130 as of the second quarter (Q2) of 2023. This marks a 34.68 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth.
The number of subscribers to public and private investment funds also increased by 33.5 percent. It reached 901,896 subscribers, compared to 675,465 subscribers in Q2 2022. Meanwhile, the ownership value of foreign investors qualified to participate in the primary stock market hit $79.5 bn in Q2 2023. This reflects a 5.1 percent YoY increase.
“All the achievements were an incentive for international institutions to praise the Kingdom’s economy, including the praise made by the International Monetary Fund for the Kingdom’s continuing efforts to complete economic and financial reforms and achieve the goals of Saudi Vision 2030,” concluded Elkuwaiz.
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