Kuwaiti bourse to lure foreign investment

* username: rupertbu

After many delays, the Kuwait Stock Exchange is about to become the last bourse in the six GCC countries to create an independent market regulator.

The move is designed to enforce transparency on listed firms, which in turn should encourage more foreign investment. The bourse is the second-largest among GCC countries, behind Saudi Arabia.

“Any regulatory effort which imposes stringent requirements in transparency and disclosure rules is a welcome addition for foreign investors,” said Hassan Awan, the head of buy-side equities research at The National Investor, a brokerage firm based in Abu Dhabi. “They avoid being in loosely regulated regimes.”