Kuwait & Middle East Financial Investment Company (KMEFIC) noted that Kuwait’s status upgrade will boost its exchange trade fund and local listed equities.
Abdullah Albusairi, Director of KMEFIC, told the media that, “The upgrade could have very positive implications for Kuwait equities. The most likely effect will be passive inflows into these stocks, especially as they will be included in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index when it is rebalanced in May 2020.”
Yesterday MSCI added Kuwait to emerging markets global index, after the Gulf State was deemed to met all crucial requirements. The MSCI Kuwait emerging markets index inclusion will generate billions of dollars of inflows into the Kuwait market. MSCI is the world’s largest index provider.
In 2019, Qatar and the UAE underwent the same process followed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is expected that Kuwait might have a performance boost in the first half of 2020.
Recently, KMEFIC launched a Kuwait single country ETF called KUW8 to track the FTSE Kuwait All Cap Index, the local media reported. KUW8 was launched in April in collaboration with the European white label ETF platform HANetf.
Kuwait’s addition further expands the MSCI Emerging Markets Index with an estimated weight of 0.69 percent.
Kuwait is committed to strengthen its position as a regional financial centre and the economy’s private sector. Earlier this year, the Saudi Stock Exchange completed the final phase of joining the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.
The Kuwaiti benchmark premier index .BKP increased 30 percent this year expecting an MSCI upgrade, the local media reported.