Wednesday, Jun 19, 2013
Abu Dhabi
The UAE capital markets regulator, Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) is in support of a merger of Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s stock markets.
In a statement yesterday, Abdullah Al Turaifi, SCA’s chief executive said: “Generally, the SCA welcomes and supports the merger decision. There are technical, administrative and logistics preparations to be made first before the merger is completed and we are ready for whatever decision that would be made in this regard. We hope this will be made very soon.”
Al Turaifi added: “In case the two markets are merged into one, it will have many advantages. The current market situation has ignited positive competition between the two markets to give out the best services to investors.”
He said the SCA is currently working on the development of regulations for listing of private companies and trading in a secondary market, which, “undoubtedly will attract private companies and family businesses to be listed on this market” which offers less strict requirements than the primary market in preparation for their listing on the primary market at a later stage.
Al Turaifi said one of the main reasons behind the elevation of the UAE markets to emerging market status by MSCI is the “great improvement in the level of disclosure, transparency and corporate governance in recent years.”
“Therefore, the SCA will continue to consolidate its market oversight role according to a long term strategy it has designed several years ago. For Morgan Stanley to elevate our markets to emerging market status underscores the need for SCA to continue on its current path,” he added.
Al Turaifi said following up the trading activities on the UAE markets, SCA has witnessed a steady growth in trading volume and has noticed increasing involvement of corporate investors like local and foreign funds and portfolios in the local markets. “We expect a significant rise in subscriptions in the last quarter of the year. Furthermore, we have noticed generally a significant slip in the level of subscriptions on international markets, as a result of the impact of the global financial crisis,” Al Turaifi noted.
By Himendra Mohan Kumar Staff Reporter
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