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Reuters
Saudi Arabia’s stock index edged higher on Monday after Al Jouf Cement and Saudi Industrial Export Co announced an export deal with Jordan, but the region as a whole traded in small ranges.
The Saudi index closed 0.1 percent higher at 6,939 points. Al Jouf rose 3.4 percent and Saudi Industrial Export Co jumped 5.1 percent. Saudi Industrial Export said it had signed a sale and marketing contract with Al Jouf to supply 72,000 tonnes of cement annually to Jordan.
The Jordan deal appears to mark one of the industry’s first major export successes, after the Saudi government said in July that it was slashing cement export tariffs by 50 percent. Foreign investors sold $223 million of Saudi stocks and bought 598 million riyals in the week through November 23, resulting in net selling of 237 million riyals.
In Qatar, the main index also edged up 0.1 percent. Vodafone Qatar, the most heavily traded stock, surged 4.0 percent real estate firm Ezdan Holding, which was downgraded to junk status by credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s earlier this month, climbed 4.7 percent. It has been recovering since late last week but is still down 47 percent year-to-date.
Drake & Scull rose 2.3 percent after it announced its shares had been included in the MSCI GCC index. That index covers about 85 percent of the free float-adjusted market capitalisation in the Gulf Cooperation Council, and is less exclusive than MSCI’s emerging markets index, which is used by many more funds.
