Saudi market ready to handle Aramco listing: El-Kuwaiz

The Saudi stock market is ready to handle the initial public offering of Saudi Aramco, given the market's openness to foreign capital and the structural improvements introduced recently, Mohammed El-Kuwaiz, chairman of Capital Market Authority, told Argaam.

"We have introduced several market improvements … the most substantial (of which) is the complete rewriting of the offering and listing rules," he said on the sidelines of the Euromoney Conference in Riyadh.

The new regulations, which took effect on April 1, aim to encourage foreign investors to list in Saudi Arabia, he added.

Three companies have filed for listing their shares on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) since the new offering and listing regulations were applied last El-Kuwaiz said.

“Companies (earlier) found some difficulty to fulfil the pre-listing requirements,” he said.

El-Kuwaiz added that a coordinative committee headed by the Saudi Minister of Finance would study the impact of Saudi Aramco’s initial public offering (IPO) on the market’s stability.

Watch the full interview below: