Riyadh, Saudi Arabia— The market capitalization of Tadawul, the Saudi stock exchange, has shot up 477 percent to $2.6 trillion during the last five years.
According to Yazid Al-Dumaiji, the Capital Market Authority’s (CMA) Undersecretary for Strategic and International Affairs, the exchange takes the ninth place among the world’s stock markets in terms of market capitalization in 2022, and the fourth place among G20.
Tadawul recently reported growth on various levels. The number of listed companies rose to 269 in 2022 from 188 in 2017.
There are almost 80 applications under review for initial public offering (IPOs), Al-Dumaiji added.
Further, assets under management (AUMs) soared 90.1% in the last five years to $198.24 billion in 2022, from $104.26 billion in 2017.
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The number of capital market institutions also saw a remarkable increase of 63% to reach 141 in 2022, compared to 86 in 2017, he added, noting that the total revenue of these institutions leapfrogged 144% to $3.25 billion from 2017-2022.
Al-Dumaiji added that Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) witnessed a rise of 388% in foreign investments to reach a historical level of $93 billion in 2022, from $19 billion in 2017. Foreign investor ownership accounted for 14.2% of free float on Tadawul last year, compared to 12.8% in 2020.
Since Tadawul joined global emerging markets indices, net foreign investments stood at nearly $49 billion in 2022, recording the highest net inflows estimated at around $11.46 billion in 2022 alone.
The top official added that the CMA continues to develop the rules regulating foreign investment in securities to enhance the Saudi capital market efficiency and attractiveness to foreign investors.
He added that fintech permits in the kingdom reached 29 recording an increase of 262.5% compared to total permits in 2020.
The market regulator seeks to introduce further enhancements in the fintech field, particularly security tokens. The CMA has recently received security token-linked fintech models in Q4 2022 in addition to three applications.
