Saudi Arabia has been named the best performing out of all emerging markets since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic while Turkey performed the worst where it registered a 22.8 percent decline since the pandemic begun, according to the data posted by global information provider Refinitiv. Out of 25 countries in the MSCI Emerging Market Index, Saudi Arabia stood first.
The country is also home to the Tadawul Stock Exchange in Riyadh that registered around a 27 percent rise in market value since the beginning of 2020, just when Covid-19 was beginning to show its impact on the world economy. The overall index registered an average increase of only 1.6 percent, and it easily supersedes the 14.2 percent increase during the MSCI World Index of all countries.
. Peru and Colombia also registered drops of more than 20 percent. Coming to the Middle East countries, Egypt witnessed a decline of 6.5 percent and Qatar registered a very slow increase of 1.2 percent. After Saudi Arabia, UAE stood second in the post-pandemic market, registering a 21.3 percent rise.
Tarek Fadlallah, chief executive of Nomura Asset Management in the Middle East told the media, “The Saudi authorities were relatively quick to react with a series of measures, especially relating to smaller businesses, to help ease the burden of the pandemic economic effects, and the market has reacted to that.”
Saudi Arabia also received praise from the International Monetary Fund for tackling the pandemic efficiently along with bringing reforms to its capital markets which helped enhance its positions as the biggest equities trading hub in the Gulf.