Kuwait to unveil stock market regulation plan

REGULATION PLAN: Kuwait will mull plans for stock market regulation on Sunday. (Getty Images)

Kuwait's government plans to submit to parliament on Sunday a much-delayed bill to set up a financial regulator to achieve more transparency on the bourse, a government minister has announced.

The OPEC producer is the only Gulf state without an authority to supervise its bourse, the second-largest in the Arab world, which has faced accusations of irregularities and fallen more than 30 percent this year.

"We finished the bill," commerce & industry minister Ahmad Baqer said after meeting bourse officials, adding that the bill, a key government reform project, would combine five drafts aimed at protecting investors and stop any manipulations.

"We're ready to cooperate with our brothers in parliament ... Our hearts are open to accept any addition," he said, without giving details of the bill.

The cabinet had originally asked an expert team to draw up a tough draft based on recommendations by foreign specialists but then dropped it in favour of a soft version, sparking criticism. Since then, no compromise for a new bill had been found.

Baqer did not say when he expected MPs to approve the bill amid a political crisis after the cabinet tendered its resignation on Tuesday following plans by three deputies to question the prime minister. The emir is yet to decide whether to accept or reject the resignations.

Like other bourses in the Gulf Arab region, Kuwait's market says it is trying to crack down on abuses that for years helped deter foreign investment in its shares, although it has relatively little power to act.

In 2006, it banned the family-owned Kharafi Group from using the exchange to trade shares in 10 companies for violating disclosure rules. Courts overturned the ban last year.

Last year, the exchange said it had found no violations after investigating record volumes of trading in shares of Mobile Telecommunications Co (Zain), the biggest stock. It did not say who was behind the spike in trade. (Reuters)

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