Gulf stocks increase more than $19 billion for six weeks

For the past six weeks, Gulf markets has recorded a gain in stocks of more than $19 billion as shown inthe Kuwaiti and Qatari Stock Exchange.

From around $1.058 trillion at the end of 2007, the combined market capitalisation of the GCC stock exchanges swelled to about $1.077trn on Wednesday, said the AMF, the league’s main financial organisation.

The slight increase followed a massive growth of $463.7bn during 2007, as their market capitalisation ended 2006 at $695.2bn.

The rise this year was mainly in Kuwait, which shot up to $209.5bn on Wednesday from $135.3bn at the end of 2007.

Qatar and Bahrain were the two other GCC gainers, rising to $102.7bn from $95.5bn and to $27.6bn from $21.1bn respectively.

Oman recorded a slight growth to around $24.3bn from $23bn, while there was a decline of nearly $10bn in the UAE. The report showed Abu Dhabi’s exchange receded to $116bn from $121.1bn and Dubai’s market to nearly $133.9bn from $138.1bn.

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