The Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) opened the New Year Tuesday, January 2, by crashing to a new five-year low as investor confidence remained dampened by the lack of action on economic reforms, brokers said.
The KSE index slumped 0.76 percent to close the first day of trading in 2001 at 1,337.8 points, the lowest level since November 1995, and almost 53 percent below its all-time record in November 1997.
The oil-rich emirate's bourse ended 2000 down 6.5 percent, in a tumultuous 12 months of trading that saw investor confidence hit rock-bottom because of a lack of economic reforms, political uncertainty and parliament-government wrangling.
Value of average daily trading, which was over $100 million in 1997, dropped 31.6 percent in 2000 to $16.9 million from $24.7 million the previous year.
"The bourse appears to be following the trend of last year. I don't see any change," one broker told AFP.
A number of decisions by the government in December, including the establishment of a secondary market and introduction of new investment tools, failed to stimulate the KSE.
Leading Kuwaiti financial experts and businessmen in November called for new legislation to protect small traders and broaden the investor base to help revitalize the sagging KSE.
The experts called for the establishment of an independent body with extensive powers to run the bourse.
Some 87 companies are listed on the KSE with a capitalization of more than $20 billion, the second most capitalized bourse in the Arab world after the NCFEI in Saudi Arabia.— (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
