By Marwa Rashad and Hadeel Al Sayegh

RIYADH/DUBAI, July 14 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's bourse iscommitted to listing on the stock exchange and the launch of itsfirst exchange-traded derivatives product will enhance itsprofile with foreign investors ahead of its flotation, its chiefexecutive said.

Tadawul, which hired HSBC HSBA.L in 2016 to manage itsplanned initial public offering, initially targeted for 2018,had put its plans on hold due to oil giant Saudi Aramco's 2222.SE record $29.4 billion IPO at the end of last year.

CEO Khalid Al-Hussan said the launch of the exchange-tradedderivatives product, due to start on Aug. 30, would also helpdeepen liquidity on the local equity market and enable it tocompete regionally and globally. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N2EL1WB

"It is indeed complementing our IPO story, it iscomplimenting our readiness to go public, because we're stillcommitted to take Tadawul public," Al-Hussan told Reuters in aninterview. "It fits very well in our equity story," he added.

The Dubai Financial Market is the only publicly listed stockmarket in the region.

With a market capitalisation of $2.5 trillion, Tadawul isthe world's 9th biggest stock market, ranked after the LondonStock Exchange and ahead of Canada's Toronto Stock Exchange,according to World Federation of Exchanges data.

"We are in good shape as being the largest in the region,our focus now is to activate this region's presence on theglobal map," Al-Hussan said.

"Exchanges in Europe, the U.S. and Asia are very activeacross the board and the region we are in is a little bit behindin that perspective so as Tadawul we have a great role to playhere."

The bourse has benefited from Aramco's listing. It haswelcomed a slew of companies this year including healthcare firmSuleiman Al Habib and real estate financing firm AmlakInternational.

It is also exploring mergers and acquisition (M&A)opportunities and is in talks with regional counterparts toexpand clearing and depository business to those markets,Al-Hussan said. "There is a great opportunity in clearing and depositoryespecially in this region to integrate further," he said, addingthat Tadawul is in advanced talks with an exchange in the Gulfregion and in early talks with another on how its clearingcentre "Muqassa" can play a role in this.

(Reporting by Marwa Rashad in Riyadh and Hadeel Al Sayegh inDubai; editing by Saeed Azhar and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) ((Hadeel.AlSayegh@thomsonreuters.com; +971566883310;))