Arab bourses gain $144bn in eight months

Arab equity investors ended nearly eight months of 2009 richer by around $144 billion (Dh528bn) to partly offset a loss of more than $400bn during 2008, official figures revealed yesterday.

From $751bn at the start of 2009, the combined market capitalisation of 13 official Arab stock exchanges surged to $895.6bn on August 27, showed the figures by the joint Arab stocks data base at the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund (AMF).

The bulk of the increase was in the capitalisation of the bourses of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt, while there was a slight decline in the capitalisation of Bahrain, Jordan and Palestine.