Trading on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) has dipped this year on weak oil prices, after the bourse saw activity surge in 2014, following its change of status to emerging market.

About QR900m ($247m) a day was traded following the upgrade to emerging market, up from an average of QR300m a day between 2004 and 2014. It has now fallen back to about QR500m a day.

“There has been a lot of interest from international investors,” said Rashid bin Ali al-Mansouri, CEO of the QSE, speaking at MEED’s Qatar Projects Conference in Doha on 10 March. “This is still a positive amount of trading, but lower oil prices have affected exchanges in the region.”

Al-Mansouri has two areas of focus for developing the stock market.

The first is increasing the number of initial public offerings (IPOs), as this will increase liquidity in the market and provide choice for investors. Only about 40 companies are listed, and the QSE is focusing on encouraging family-owned companies to float, as there is a limited pool of government-owned companies that can list.

“Family-owned companies are cash-rich in the GCC, so they aren’t attracted by the injection of liquidity,” said Al-Mansouri. “So we are developing other incentives to offer them.”

The second area is diversifying the offering from stocks. The QSE will work with the government and central bank to offer four types of government bonds, including sharia-compliant and indexed bonds.