Foreign investors have growing appetite for KSA equities, with their holdings of Saudi shares listed on Tadawul rising to SAE 347 bn at the end of 2022, a 300% increase from the end of 2018, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) said in an annual report (pdf) on Monday. Some SAR 180 bn worth of foreign investment has flowed into shares on the Tadawul’s main market in the past five years, the authority said.

The CMA has been actively courting foreign institutional investors at the same time as global interest in the Saudi story has been rising. Foreigners held 14.2% of Tadawul’s total freefloat shares at the end of last year, up from 3.8% in 2018, underscoring “growing international confidence” in the market, said CME Deputy President Abdullah Binghannam.

A penchant for Saudi debt? Foreign ownership of our debt has grown more than 10x since the market opened without restriction to foreign investors in late 2020, according to the CMA.

What they said: “The CMA has made major efforts in recent years to increase the attractiveness of the Saudi capital market to foreign investors and to encourage their entry and participation in the trading and offerings, as well as in the general assemblies of firms,” the report read.

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