RIYADH: Foreign inflows in the Saudi capital market since 2019 have reached nearly SR135 billion ($35.98 billion), despite the Kingdom being at an early stage in dealing with external investors, Capital Market Authority Chairman Mohammed ElKuwaiz said.

Opening the market for foreign investment supports diversification of funding sources for listed companies, ElKuwaiz said, during his participation in the second session of the Financial Stability Conference in Riyadh.

The CMA chairman added that Saudi Arabia is working to issue a market-making system to boost the institutional investor’s effectiveness in trading, not equity.  

The authority does not aim to maximize the institutional investor’s turnover over the individual investor, but the goal is to improve the market’s depth through diversifying trading, he explained. 

Turnover of institutional investors, comprising all non-individual investors, doubled, he added. 

ElKuwaiz highlighted that a total of six companies out of 10 largest companies in terms of market capitalization are preparing sustainability reports even though they are not obligated to announce them.