DOHA: The Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) would soon come out with a slew of regulations that would help increase the total number of listed firms on the local bourse. The new regulations would lift the volume of trade on the Qatar Exchange (QE), QFMA’s Director of legal affairs and enforcement Zain Al Abdin Sharar said here yesterday.
Addressing the MEED Qatar Banking Summit , Zain noted the new capital market regulations could double the number of listed companies in the next five years.
The expectations of a sharp increase in the number of listed firms and the volume of trade on the QE will reflect the impact of a wide-ranging programme of capital market reform. He said important further changes will soon be implemented.
“We have new rules for listing on the secondary market. This will be for companies that can’t meet requirements for listing on the primary market. We have amended the corporate governance code for companies listed on the main market. They will improve the disclosure requirements,” Zain said.
He also added that QFMA is about to issue new rules for financial adequacy for financial service firms. These will help the market to be more efficient and to protect the market against any unseen circumstances.
The Regulator will also soon issue new M&A rules for listed companies. All listed companies will know what disclosure they should make around and M&A, Zain added.
The QFMA has finalised the rules for the regulation and licensing of the Qatar Central Security Depositary. “We also are considering rules for margin trading and the listing of real estate investment funds,” he added.
As of now the QE has 42 listed companies. In June, the MSCI upgraded Qatar from frontier market to emerging market status. Qatar is due to be included in the MSCI emerging market index in May 2014.
The Peninsula
