Several Gulf stock markets, led by Dubai, rose in early trade on Monday after the price of oil recovered slightly.

Brent crude climbed above $62 per barrel on Monday, after hitting 5-1/2-year lows of $60.28 earlier, as traders began pricing in expectations of improving global manufacturing data to be published later this week.

Dubai's stock index jumped 2.9 per cent as most shares in the emirate gained. Emaar Properties and Arabtec, which dominated trading, added 3.0 and 4.8 per cent respectively.

Abu Dhabi's index rose 1.0 per cent and Oman's bourse edged up 0.2 per cent. Kuwait's index, however, fell 0.8 per cent.

Gulf markets have plunged in line with oil prices for the last few weeks as investors became worried that a sharp decline in oil revenues could trigger government spending cuts and slow non-oil growth.

While analysts and fund managers believe this is unlikely to happen in countries other than Oman and Bahrain, they think stock markets may remain under pressure from retail investor selling in the near future, until there is evidence that government spending and corporate profit growth is staying strong.-Reuters