Kuwait Stock Exchange Wins 'Highest Turnover Arab Exchange' Award from Arab Union for Financial Markets

The Kuwait Stock Exchange won the “Arab Exchange with the Highest Turnover Ratio” award for 2025, presented by the Arab Federation of Capital Markets (AFCM), during the awards ceremony held in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi.

This honor recognizes the Kuwait Stock Exchange for achieving the highest turnover ratio among the Arab exchanges eligible for the award. The turnover ratio is a metric that measures trading value relative to market capitalization, reflecting the level of trading activity relative to market size over a specific period.

The turnover ratio at the Kuwait Stock Exchange reached 50% in 2025, supported by a 79.26% increase in trading value to reach 26.58 billion Kuwaiti dinars, while market capitalization rose by 22.05% to reach 53.187 billion Kuwaiti dinars by year-end.

This achievement highlights the level of activity witnessed by the Kuwaiti capital market in 2025 and reflects part of the results achieved through the market’s development journey over the past years, which focused on improving operational efficiency, developing infrastructure, enhancing trading mechanisms, expanding the investor base, and providing more investment tools and products.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange’s receipt of this award comes within the framework of its continuous efforts to develop a capital market that is efficient, transparent, and capable of keeping pace with rapid developments in regional and global capital markets, thereby enhancing its attractiveness to investors and supporting its role within the economic system of the State of Kuwait.

In collaboration with the Capital Markets Authority, the Kuwait Clearing Company, and various stakeholders in the capital market ecosystem, the Kuwait Stock Exchange continued to implement strategic projects to develop market infrastructure. These included updating trading mechanisms and the clearing and settlement system, implementing the central counterparty model, developing the broker business model, and completing the necessary frameworks to enable the listing of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and fixed-income instruments, thereby expanding investment options and supporting risk management efficiency.

The launch of Part 2 of Phase 3 of the Market Development Program (“MD 3.2”) in July 2025, within the year covered by the award, marked a key milestone in this journey. It included the development of the “Qualified Broker” model, the implementation of cash settlements through local banks and the “KASSIP” system, and the introduction of sub-account numbers within consolidated accounts. These measures enhance operational efficiency, transparency, and oversight, and prepare the market technologically for trading ETFs, bonds, and sukuk.

Regarding transparency, the Exchange issued the updated version of the 2026 Disclosure Guide for Governance, Social, and Environmental Responsibility, in line with the requirements of the Capital Markets Authority and incorporating IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 standards. This aims to help listed companies improve the quality and consistency of their disclosures, particularly with the mandatory requirement for “First Market” companies to disclose sustainability reports starting from 2026 for the 2025 fiscal year. This follows the Exchange’s commitment to sustainability practices since joining the UN Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative in 2017.

These efforts align with the Exchange’s long-term strategy to consolidate the position of the Kuwaiti capital market as a modern, globally connected market, thereby enhancing investor confidence and the market’s attractiveness to local and foreign institutional investments. This supports its role in financing the private sector and diversifying the national economy, in harmony with the “Kuwait 2035” vision.

Trading activity represents one of the key elements in the efficiency of capital markets and their ability to serve investors and issuers, while the turnover rate serves as one of the indicators used to measure trading volume relative to the total market size.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange’s achievement of the highest turnover rate within its award category reflects market activity during 2025, alongside investor engagement with available opportunities, listed companies, and investment instruments offered by the market. The volume of traded shares increased by 71.48% to reach 117.43 billion shares, while the number of transactions rose by 54.57% to exceed 6.04 million deals.

The “First” market accounted for 56.32% of the total trading value, amounting to approximately 14.97 billion Kuwaiti dinars, while the “Main” market captured 62.76% of the total volume of traded shares.

This coincided with positive performance across market indices: the “First” market index rose by 21.17%, the “Main” market index increased by 20.20%, and the general market index climbed by 20.99%, closing the year at 8,908 points.

Additionally, the value of market maker trades increased by 88.63% to reach approximately 5.38 billion Kuwaiti dinars, reflecting their role in enhancing liquidity.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange continues to work on enhancing participation among various investor segments, including individual investors and local and international institutional investors, recognizing the importance of a diversified investor base in supporting market depth, efficiency, and sustainability of activity.

Institutions accounted for 63.84% of the total trading value during 2025, while foreign investor trades represented 13.80% of that share. Their ownership percentage rose to 14.59% of total shares by the end of the year. The number of active investor accounts also increased by 111.52%, reaching approximately 477,000 accounts.

The exchange continues its efforts to promote the Kuwaiti capital market and the investment opportunities it offers through conferences, investment forums, promotional tours, and joint initiatives with local and global financial and investment institutions. These efforts contribute to strengthening direct communication between listed companies and investors, raising awareness of the Kuwaiti market, and highlighting the developments in its infrastructure and investment system over the past years.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange’s receipt of the “Highest Turnover Rate Among Arab Exchanges” award recognizes the continuous efforts made by various stakeholders in the Kuwaiti capital market ecosystem. These efforts have contributed over the past years to developing the market, enhancing its infrastructure, and improving its efficiency. The Kuwait Stock Exchange believes that the development of financial markets relies on cooperation and integration among all relevant parties, including regulatory authorities, infrastructure institutions, listed companies, brokerage firms, financial institutions, and investors.

From this perspective, the exchange continues to work with its partners to develop the Kuwaiti capital market and provide an environment capable of meeting the changing needs of investors and issuers, while supporting the market’s role in linking capital with investment opportunities.

This recognition coincides with a new phase in the development of the Kuwaiti capital market, during which the Kuwait Stock Exchange is working to expand the range of available investment tools and products, thereby gradually transforming the market into a multi-asset market.

The year 2026 witnessed a number of significant developments in this field, including the launch of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), alongside the development and activation of a trading system for fixed-income instruments, such as bonds and sukuk. These initiatives provide investors with more options and support the diversification of tools available in the market.

These developments are part of a strategic direction aimed at building a more diversified and deeper financial market, extending beyond equity trading to offer a broader range of investment tools and products that meet the needs of various investor segments, while providing additional financing channels for issuers.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange continues to develop the market’s technological infrastructure and invest in modern systems and solutions, enhancing its capacity to accommodate more products and services in the future and improving its operational readiness in line with practices and standards adopted in advanced financial markets.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange is also working to strengthen the presence of the Kuwaiti financial market at both the regional and international levels, through engagement with global investment institutions, asset managers, and investors, as well as participation in specialized conferences and events related to financial markets.

Through these efforts, the exchange seeks to highlight the developments experienced by the Kuwaiti market, showcase listed companies and available investment opportunities, and enhance communication channels between the global investment community and the various stakeholders in Kuwait’s financial market ecosystem.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange places special emphasis on financial literacy and investment awareness initiatives, recognizing the role of knowledge in supporting informed participation in financial markets and empowering investors to better understand investment tools and trading mechanisms.

These efforts are part of a comprehensive vision for market development, which includes enhancing knowledge, strengthening communication, and reinforcing principles of transparency and responsible investment practices.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange extends its gratitude and appreciation to the Arab Federation of Stock Exchanges for this honor, commending the federation’s role in promoting cooperation, knowledge exchange, and expertise sharing among Arab stock exchanges and financial market institutions, and supporting the development of markets in the region.

The exchange also offers its sincere thanks and appreciation to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange for the warm reception, excellent organization, and hospitality, as well as for the efforts made to ensure the success of the event and provide a platform bringing together representatives of stock exchanges, financial market institutions, and the financial sector in the region.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange values such meetings, which contribute to strengthening communication among Arab financial markets and facilitating the exchange of experiences, expertise, and best practices, thereby supporting the development of financial markets in the region and enhancing their ability to keep pace with the rapid transformations occurring in the global financial markets industry.

The exchange reaffirms its commitment to continuing efforts to develop the Kuwaiti financial market, strengthen its infrastructure, expand the range of products and services, and diversify its investor base, all of which contribute to building a deeper, more diversified, and efficient market, while enhancing its role in linking capital with opportunities and driving sustainable economic progress in the State of Kuwait.