Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund will begin investing at least KD1.5 billion ($5.4 billion) in Kuwaiti equities this month to boost confidence in the exchange, the country's finance minister said on Thursday.

Kuwait is seeking to reassure investors in the Gulf Arab country, where a fall of about 30 per cent in the exchange's main index his year has ignited protests among traders.

'The fund will be about 1.5 billion Kuwaiti dinars and it could be extended,' finance minister Mustapha Al Shamali told reporters at a meeting in Cairo.

He said it would begin investing after next week's Eid holiday and would target specific companies, which he declined to name.

'The fund will not invest across the board,' he said. 'It will invest only in companies that have good returns because we are spending the people's money.'

Last month Kuwait's cabinet asked the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), its investment arm, to set up a fund to invest in the bourse.

The KIA is a major shareholder in many Kuwaiti companies including telecom operator Mobile Telecommunications Company.

The authority, which earlier this year bought into US banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, would not sell any foreign investments to pay for the local bourse fund, Shamali said.-Reuters