Title: The Sixteenth Meeting of the Heads of GCC Capital Markets Authorities Committee (or Equivalent)

Kuwait - April 27, 2017 - The sixteenth meeting of the GCC Capital Markets Authorities Committee has held its meeting in Manamah. The CMA delegation was headed by Dr. Nayef Al- Hajraf - Chairman of CMA Board of Commissioners & Managing Director, accompanied by Mr. Zaid Khaldoon Alnaqeeb - Director of the Strategies Office, Mr. Abdulrahman Mahmoud – Director of International Relations Office, and Mr. Moayed Adnan Al-Shakhs - Director of the Managing Director’s Office.

The opening speech was given by Rasheed Bin Saeed Al-Miraj – Chief Director of Bahrain Bourse and Head of the Central Bank of Bahrain, in which he greeted the participants, and emphasized that this meeting would enhance the achievements of the GCC. 

At the beginning of the session, the Committee reviewed the decisions of the Ministerial Committee’s session number 142 held last March, which included the decision regarding continuing the use of the unified rules and principles for the integration of the GCC financial markets as guidelines only. The Committee also reviewed the latest developments related to the memorandum of understanding between the market regulators in the GCC countries for joint cooperation in the field of training and exchanging information and experiences, which was signed in September 2015. The Secretariat presented to the Committee the final recommendations of the meetings of the supervisory Committee on the study of strategy and mechanisms of integration, as well as recommendations regarding the electronic supervision system (SMARTS) received by Nasdaq.

The committee also discussed the annual workshop on supervision in order to exchange experiences between the GCC countries, which was held last March in Dubai. It addressed the issue of market manipulation, where it came to recommend holding this workshop annually to cover diverse topics. It suggested that Bahrain shall host the next workshop for the year 2018, and to deal with the subject of supervision of online trading.

The committee also reviewed the minutes of the meeting of the working team responsible for the training, which discussed several topics, most notably the developments of the plan prepared by the Capital Markets Authority in Kuwait on the joint e-training portal prepared by the Authority, which is in its final stages before being launched. 

Moreover, the Committee reviewed the proposed topics’ list submitted by the member states for discussion at the meeting, in addition to working on the possibility of the unified trading start time in the GCC capital markets. It also discussed several subjects in the meeting, including supervisory cooperation, standardization of shareholder numbers, the application of the short selling mechanism, the conditions of dual listing, and other topics of common nature between the parties.

Clarification to Editors
The Capital Markets Authority was established pursuant to Law No. 7/2010, approved by the Kuwaiti Parliament in February 2010, and amended by Law No. 108/2014. Pursuant to the Law, the Authority shall regulate and supervise the securities activities, achieve transparency and fairness, observe listed companies’ execution of Corporate Governance Regulations, and protect investors from unfair practices which violate the Authority's Law.
Furthermore, the Law's provisions stipulate the supervision of mergers, acquisitions, and disclosure operations. The Authority also aims to provide awareness programs related to securities activities.
 
For more information, kindly contact:
Public Relations & Media Office
Tel: 22903062
Fax: 22903505
Email: pr-media@cma.gov.kw