Saudi Arabia Eases Entry Rules for Foreign Investors in Stock Market

Saudi Arabia’s financial regulator, the Capital Market Authority (CMA), has ‎‎announced new enhancements to its Qualified Foreign Investor (QFI) ‎‎framework. The fresh reforms are intended to ease requirements and entry ‎barriers in an effort to draw more ‎capital into the country's stock market‏.

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Among the reforms, the minimum value of assets under management ‎needed for an institution to qualify as an investor would fall to $500 million ‎from $1 billion.‎

‎Saudi Arabia has also simplified requirements for qualifying the Affiliates Affiliates Affiliates serve as an essential component of a broker’s client acquisition tactics and marketing. One of the most important functions of affiliate marketers is the sending of leads to the broker, which are directly opening an account or visiting the broker’s website. There are several ways in which brokers compensate affiliates based on the number and type of clients they refer to the company and whether or not or how much they end up depositing.Understanding CPA or Cost Per Acquisition The bro Affiliates serve as an essential component of a broker’s client acquisition tactics and marketing. One of the most important functions of affiliate marketers is the sending of leads to the broker, which are directly opening an account or visiting the broker’s website. There are several ways in which brokers compensate affiliates based on the number and type of clients they refer to the company and whether or not or how much they end up depositing.Understanding CPA or Cost Per Acquisition The bro Read this Term of ‎institutional investors, with their subsidiaries and managed funds now could be ‎approved without submitting a separate application for each of them.

The CMA also recognized a wider range of other regulatory jurisdictions as ‎acceptable to Saudi Arabia, the ‎securities regulator said on Tuesday. ‎

Foreign investors were originally allowed to start investing directly in Saudi ‎Arabia’s stocks market in 2015. The CMA reduced minimum requirements for the ‎institutions in 2016 and is now proposing a fresh round of reforms, as ‎Riyadh seeks to draw more capital into the market before the listing of state ‎oil giant Saudi Aramco.‎

Saudi Arabia’s reforms are part of Vision 2030, an economic reform plan ‎aimed at reducing historical high dependence on oil by diversifying the ‎country’s economy and transforming how the kingdom generates ‎public income.‎

In this context, Saudi officials plan to list around 5 percent of Aramco by ‎the end of 2018 on both the country’s stock market and one or more ‎global venues, with London, New York and Hong Kong in the ‎running.‎

Mohammed ‎ElKuwaiz, Chairman of the CMA, commented: ‎“The goal of these enhancements to the QFI program is to streamline ‎investor qualification and make it part of the account opening process ‎rather than a separate approval process. These changes will broaden access ‎to more financial institutions around the world and further streamline ‎and accelerate the process of investing in the Saudi capital market.”‎

‎ Mr. El-Kuwaiz added: “Capital market reform is the linchpin to unlocking the potential of the ‎Saudi economy and this update to the QFI program is just the latest in ‎series of measures and reforms implemented to expand access, ‎increase efficiency, enhance transparency and strengthen ‎governance.”‎