Middle East funds plan to continue to increase their investments in Kuwait in the coming months, while to a large extent they maintain their exposure to other countries in the region at current levels in a survey conducted by Reuters.
A third of the managers who participated in the survey said they would increase their investments in Egypt, and about the same proportion said they would decrease investment in Qatar.
Six of the 11 fund managers consulted said they would increase their investments in Kuwait, continuing the trend of the previous months.
Kuwait’s <.BKP> index rose 20.7 percent this year, making it the best performing market in the region.
Last week, the MSCI index compiler said it would raise Kuwait’s shares to its main emerging market index in 2020, a move that could trigger billions of dollars in passive fund inflows.
The Capital Market Authority of Kuwait said on Tuesday that Kuwaiti shares could attract entries of around $ 5 billion.
Four of the 11 fund managers surveyed said they were increasing their investments in Egypt.
The Egyptian market has risen by 8.17% this year, outperforming other markets in the Middle East region, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
Economists polled by Reuters last month expected Egypt’s economy to grow 5.5% in the current 2018/2019 fiscal year.
The same number of managers said they were decreasing their allocations in Qatar, whose index <.QSI> has been one of the worst performers this year.
A ten-to-one stock split for companies in the Qatar Stock Exchange began on June 9, with the goal of encouraging small investors to invest to increase liquidity.
Most fund managers said they would keep their allocations in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the same way.
