Capital Markets

A series of reforms being implemented by the Capital Markets Authority are expected to benefit the country’s bourse, following on the comprehensive restructuring of the Kuwait Stock Exchange in the years following the 2007-08 economic downturn. In 2009 the Kuwait Stock Exchange introduced a new classification system that organised listed companies into 15 sectors, instead of just eight as under the previous system. The regulator is also moving forward with a plan to privatise the Kuwait Stock Exchange, which was converted to a privately managed company called Bourse Kuwait in April 2015, and eventually to take the bourse public in an IPO. The banking sector currently accounts for 49% of the total Kuwait Stock Exchange value by market capitalisation, followed by telecoms with 11%.