According to an official Tadawul report, foreign investors in the Saudi Exchange acquired net stocks worth around SR3.84 billion ($1.02 billion) in September 2023, which marked a remarkable 947 per cent year-on-year growth. In effect, the strong surge thus proves that the Kingdom is making further efforts attract foreign capital under the Vision 2030 initiative and setting Saudi Arabia as a global business center.

According to the monthly report issued by Tadawul on September activity, net foreign purchases reached SR366 million. For the first nine months of the year, the total net foreign purchases were SR16.4 billion, or 36% higher compared with the figure of the same period in 2022. Qualified foreign investors purchased SR3.78 billion in September and were followed by foreign residents who added SR76.62 million in net foreign purchasing.

Saudi stocks’ total foreign ownership value increased to SR414.9 billion in September, a year-on-year increase of 13.39 percent. The local investments in stock holdings in the main market stood at SR946.32 billion by the end of September, which is 18.71 percent higher than that of the same month last year. On the other hand, the institutional investors’ stock holding stood at SR8.66 trillion by the end of September, which is 15.01 percent lower than that of a year ago. The Kingdom’s main market by the end of September stood at SR77.72 billion, accounted for by investors from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), said a statement issued last week. This was 36.85 per cent higher compared to the same period last year. Another report also showed that foreign ownership in Saudi Arabia’s parallel market, Nomu, reached SR914.07 million by the end of September. The figure is 67.54 per cent higher compared to that of the previous year. In the parallel market, individual and institutional Saudi investors had invested 54.33 billion riyals in stocks by the end of September, up by 16.73 per cent from a year ago. Stocks with GCC investors in this market also increased impressively by 26.85 per cent to SR247.44 million by the end of September.

Overall, these trends indicate a robust surge in foreign investment activities in Saudi Arabia‘s equity markets, conducive to the strengthening of the Kingdom’s financial ecosystem by attractive global capital.