The UAE is planning to change its working week for government employees, breaking ranks with the rest of the Gulf region and accelerating a push to draw in international investment and business by aligning with global markets. Instead of the current Sunday-to-Thursday working week, it will adopt a 4 1/2-day working week, with Friday -- a holy day in Islam -- being a half day.
The exchanges “will operate Monday-Friday and Friday will be a full business day for the stock markets,” Abdulrahman Al Awar, director general of the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources, said in a Bloomberg TV interview Wednesday. “The decision is made to invest in the competitiveness of the UAE economy and to enhance productivity.”
The change in equity-market operating hours aligns the UAE with much of the rest of the world but distances it from regional competitors such as Saudi Arabia, leaving traders and investors with the challenge of finding a balance between the two. The Saudi bourse, the largest in the Middle East, trades Sunday through Thursday.
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