Tadawul (the Saudi Arabia stock exchange) is the sole entity authorised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to act as the kingdom’s securities exchange (the Exchange), listing and trading in securities, as well as deposit, transfer, clearing, settlement, and registry of ownership of securities traded on the Exchange.

The Tadawul is currently the largest equity market in the GCC and MENA regions, with a market cap exceeding $400 billion, and has historically enjoyed high levels of liquidity, ranked 4th relative to its emerging market peers in terms of value of shares traded.

HRH Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf Al Saud, the Saudi ambassador in the UK, along with His Excellency Minister of Finance Mohammed Al-Jadaan were present at the meeting.

The UK delegation included CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group Xavier Rolet, and UK ambassador in Saudi Arabia Simon Collis. CEO of Tadawul Engineer Khalid Al-Hussan received the Prime Minister at the media centre of Tadawul.

Following the visit, Prime Minister May and the UK delegation attended a meeting organised by Tadawul with representatives from key government sectors, including Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Chairman of the Capital Market Authority (CMA), and Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), in addition to representatives from the private sector. The meeting focused on enhancing economic relations and exploring possible future areas of cooperation between KSA and the UK.

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IFM Correspondent

September 2, 2016: Things are not as bad as it was thought it would be post Brexit. A monthly business survey has found that more than half of the confidence lost in the aftermath of the referendum has been recovered. However, businesspersons remained largely pessimistic about the economic outlook, a survey by YouGov/Cebr UK Economic Index showed.

The report said 48% of the 500 decision-makers surveyed have an optimistic outlook now, which is up from 46% in July but still below the 53% figure recorded before the vote. This was explained by improved expectations for capital investment, revenue from domestic sales and revenue from exports over the next year — partly due to the weaker pound, the report said

The overall confidence index reached 109.7 in August from 105.0 in July. But companies remained downbeat about the economy in the next 12 months.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will not start the formal divorce procedure from the EU by triggering Article 50 of the EU Lisbon Treaty until next year, to allow time to come up with a negotiating stance.

“Once the UK shows its hand on Brexit and invokes Article 50, things could change for the worse quickly,” said Stephen Harmston of YouGov. “But as businesses and consumers don’t know when this will happen, they have seemingly decided to just get on with it.”

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