Talal Al-Ghanem

KUWAIT: There is a clear outline for developing Kuwait Boursa, the national stock exchange, with the main component and key being the bolstering of cooperation with other international operators, a senior market official said yesterday. Chairman of the Board and Director General of Boursa Kuwait Talal Al-Ghanem said that the decision to further transform and develop the bourse was in the court of the Capital Markets Authority, revealing that the stock exchange was taking the necessary steps to achieve this goal.

International standards

Among the necessary procedures was embarking on a strategy to finalize deals after the market ends its daily operations which is part of Kuwait's Bourse steps to work within international standards, said Ghanem. Brokerage companies have a part to play in the grand scheme of things, affirmed Ghanem who indicated that collaboration between the companies and Kuwait Bourse would have its reward when the transformation finalizes. He noted that Kuwait Bourse would inform these companies about any upcoming challenges in the future.

In recent times, Kuwait Bourse has held several workshops and has set help counters to answer inquires by companies in regards to future plans, he indicated. For example, Kuwait Bourse has set a counter to answer inquires about the Interim Post-Trade Model (IPTM1), said Ghanem, revealing that this helpdesk began full operation on May 21, 2017.

The next level

On other steps to develop the market performance, Ghanem said that Kuwait Bourse carried out several measures to take market operations to the next level, noting that these measures focused on improving the stock exchange's IT and trading systems as well as developing human resources via employing more Kuwaiti talents. He pointed out that listed companies now could post their profits via the system launched by Kuwait Bourse online, which offers such entities full transparency through uploading necessary trading data. All these measures are aiming towards the goal of making Kuwait Bourse "a force to be reckoned with," said Ghanem.

Over-The-Counter

Meanwhile, Ghanem touched on initiating the Over-The-Counter (OTC) services in Kuwait Bourse, saying that the mainframe of such system should be set in order to organize trading. He added that an automated system also should be set in motion for the OTC to operate smoothly. The OTC is a stocks system that allows dealers to form trading networks away from the normal market operations. - KUNA