ABU DHABI- The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) said on Sunday it was cutting its trading commission fees by between 50% and 90% as it seeks to attract investors into the market.

The measure comes amid Abu Dhabi's wider plans to lower costs and reduce barriers for doing business as part of a 50 billion dirhams ($13.62 billion) stimulus package launched last year to bolster the emirate's economy.

The new trading commission fees will be effective from July 1, 2019, ADX said in a statement.

ADX's cost for annual transactions of less than 250 million dirhams will be five basis points (0.05%) of the transaction value against 0.10% previously, the statement said.

The cost reduces to 0.03% for transactions between 250 million dirhams up to 500 million dirhams and to 0.02% for transactions over 500 million dirhams but less than 1 billion dirhams.

The cost goes down by 90% to 0.01% for transactions over 1 billion dirhams.

"This initiative is designed to reduce costs on investors, build confidence, increase liquidity as well as attract more investors into the exchange," the statement said.

ADX had 8,395 institutional investors at the end of May 2019, including 6,318 foreign investors.

In the first five months of this year, institutional investors traded 1.5 billion dirhams of securities against 890 million dirhams in the same period last year, the statement said.

($1 = 3.6728 UAE dirham)

(Reporting By Stanley Carvalho, editing by Davide Barbuscia and David Evans) ((stanley.carvalho@thomsonreuters.com; + 9712 6444431; Reuters Messaging: stanley.carvalho.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))