Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), a leading provider of investment decision support tools worldwide, has decided to upgrade the MSCI Qatar and MSCI UAE indices from Frontier Markets to Emerging Markets.

 

The reclassifications of the MSCI Qatar and MSCI UAE Indices will coincide with the May 2014 semi-annual index review, it said.

 

It also said the MSCI Greece Index will be downngraded from Developed Markets to Emerging Markets and the MSCI Morocco Index from Emerging Markets to Frontier Markets. 

 

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which tracks US$7.3 trillion of equities around the world, is considered the A-list of growth markets and includes countries such as China, Brazil and India. 

 

The move is a major sign of approval from institutional investors for the countries' stock markets, and is expected to attract more stable sources of capital to local equities.

 

Meanwhile, Dubai Financial Market (DFM) today welcomed the MSCI classification review to upgrade the MSCI UAE Index to “Emerging Markets” status. 

 

Essa Kazim, managing director and CEO, Dubai Financial Market said: “This significant step evidently demonstrates international institutions’ recognition of DFM’s pivotal role over the last three years to further enhance the UAE market infrastructure in collaboration with the Securities and Commodities Authority of UAE (SCA). 

 

“This development is overdue in light of the market infrastructure improvements made and ticking of all upgrade requirements long time ago,” he said.

 

“DFM spared no effort and has taken numerous initiatives to lay out the necessary frameworks for various development steps including the implementation of the “Delivery versus Payment” (DvP) mechanism since 2011 as well as the implementation of a Buyer Cash Compensation feature last May. Additionally, we have been actively engaged in productive discussions with various market participants including custodians and institutional investors via a series of meetings held in the global financial centers. The aim of these meetings was not only to explain measures taken but also to listen to their remarks and feedback on further initiatives to follow”, Kazim added.  

     

“We are delighted to see the UAE market upgraded to “Emerging Markets” status, which reflects international investors’ confidence in our markets and their satisfaction with what we have accomplished. The reignited interest of local and foreign investors towards DFM since the beginning of the year underlines that what we have implemented caters to investors’ expectations and the attractiveness of UAE market to foreign investments.” Kazim said.

 

“DFM reiterates its commitment to ensure that market infrastructure meets international best practice recommendations. We will be implementing securities lending and borrowing together with market making once we have completed the necessary regulatory process.  This will further increase the UAE’s attractiveness for foreign investments thereby placing our market in the position amongst international markets”, Kazim concluded.

 

It is noteworthy that DFM is amongst the best performing exchanges globally since the beginning of the year with its market index up by almost 50 per cent to rank amongst the best performing exchanges while the average daily trading value increased 67 per cent to Dh460 million compared to Dh278.2 million in the corresponding period of 2012.  - TradeArabia News Service