DUBAI, 10 June 2007 — Saudi Arabia topped the list of Gulf investors in Dubai financial market over the past five months with an estimated AED11.8 billion of the AED16 billion total investments, Arabic business daily Al-Eqtisadiah reported yesterday, quoting Dubai financial market sources. Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain took the second, third and fourth positions, respectively.

The Saudi deals accounted for 7.5 percent of the AED216 billion total transactions, inclusive of other Arab and non-Arab investors.

The 27,777 Saudi investors constituted 60 percent of the 46,462 investors belonging to the Gulf region. On the other hand, Saudis occupied 5.3 percent of the total investors in the Dubai market where a total 514,491 of businessmen including Arab and non-Arab investors.

The Saudi investors held 1.5 billion shares with a purchase value of AED5.4 billion carried out in 31,000 transactions, while their selling price reached AED6.3 billion in 32,236 deals involving 1.2 billion shares.

The report said Gulf investors owned 2.6 billion shares at a purchase value of AED7.4 billion in 50,000 deals involving 1.6 billion shares against the sales of 1.8 billion shares for AED8.5 billion in 586,000 deals.

On the other hand, there were 468,962 investors from other Arab countries with 915.7 million shares. They made AED15.8 billion worth purchases in 179,000 deals and transacted 3.7 billion shares for AED16.3 billion.

The number of investors from the United Arab Emirates were estimated at 387,740 who bought 37,3 billion shares valued at AED69.3 billion in 479,7000 deals involving 18.4 billion shares against sales worth AED74 billion in 514,000 deals involving 19.2 billion shares. In the period under review, the increasing presence of non-Arab investors in the area was noted. There were 33,397 investors holding 2.2 billion shares valued over AED15.6 billion.

Kuwaitis, with total 1,770,000 shares held valued at AED677 million, came second. At AED169.3 million worth of 169.3 million shares, Qatar ranked third and Bahrain took the fourth place with 96.4 million shares valued at AED451 million.

Jordanians led the Arabs, with 15,741 investors out of the total 46,892. They owned 477 million shares valued at AED5 billion. Egyptians took the second slot with 7,917 investors controlling 115.5 million shares valued at AED4 billion.

Britons topped the non-Arab investors with 1,707 owning1.2 billion shares valued at AED 8.7 billion, followed by Americans with 598 investors owning 84.4 million shares valued at AED1.5 billion.