GCC bourses could merge

The Gulf’s national bourses will “ultimately” move towards closer regional ties, similar to the European Union model, the head of Qatar’s stock market told Arabian Business. “Ultimately and potentially yes,” Andre Went, CEO of the Qatar Exchange (QE), said when asked if he believed the six regional GCC bourses should develop stronger ties and integration in order to increase trading. “I’ve been asked this before and one of my activities with NYSE Euronext [QE’s partner] was to work on the European integration… so I have seen many angles and many ways to start,” he added. While West believed closer ties were in the pipeline, he said it was not a top priority at the moment. “For the time being, there are more important priorities and I think markets focus on their open development before they start looking at cross border combinations. “It is more important to start harmonising regulation rather than harmonising trading,” he added. Consolidation of the region’s stock exchanges would help improve liquidity and activity for capital markets, a senior executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said last year. “I think consolidation would help because it would provide that size and liquidity factor, which would help traded volumes,” From Arabian Business