Saudi Arabia's stocks value rises 13% in January

Riyadh: The value of Saudi stocks in January jumped to 2.75 trillion Saudi riyals ($733.3 billion), up 13 per cent over the previous month.

But the value of traded stocks fell one per cent to 631 billion riyals from 635.5 billion riyals.

The Saudi stock index reached a record high on Wednesday.

The Tadawul All-Share Index crossed the 19,000 barrier to close at an all-time high of 19,069.50. The stock index rose 12.54 per cent to 18,807 on January 31 from 16,712 on December 31.

The number of stocks traded in January hit 1.11 billion against 1.41 billion in December, a decline of 18 per cent.

The number of trades reached 6.59 million in January against 6.98 million in December, a decline of five per cent.

There was also a decline in the number of trading days to 21 in January from 26 in December.

Meanwhile, the volume of Saudi investments in fixed assets such as buildings and equipment reached 196 billion riyals at the end of 2005, comprising 16.5 per cent of gross domestic product.

Economic experts from the Samba Group expect that a steady increase will continue for the next five years and will comprise 25 per cent of GDP.

According to a Samba report, the insurance sector will be one of the major benefactors of Saudi Arabia's membership in the World Trade Organisation.

"The Saudi government is currently making necessary amendments in its insurance law in response to a demand made by a number of WTO member countries to ease the provision of minimum capital for insurance companies."

The insurance law stipulates that there should be a minimum capital of 100 million riyals and 200 million riyals for launching insurance and re-insurance companies in the Kingdom respectively.