The Saudi stock market scored on Thursday the highest closing point in 31 months. This coincided with Saudi Arabia move towards economic reforms that might diversify the economy and decrease reliance on oil as the main income source in the country. In this regard, Saudi Minister of Finance Mohammed al-Jadaan told Bloomberg that the economic reforms in the Kingdom are not linked to oil prices and that Saudi Arabia is committed to these reforms. He stressed that there were no plans to revise the reforms that were already carried out, adding that future reforms will take place over a long period of time. In a related matter, the Saudi stock market index closed Thursday on a one percent rise, or 79 points, to reach 7,841 points. This is the highest closure since August 2015 amid active trading worth SR5.1 billion (USD1.36 billion). Total traded shares exceeded 213 million over 117,000 deals. These updates coincided with Moody’s bet on the solidity and resilience of the Saudi banking sector, which it confirmed in a report released last week. It described the future outlook of the Saudi banking sector as “stable”, adding that the Saudi economy’s growth by 1.3 percent in 2018 will lead to a growth in lending. Financial results of Saudi banks listed in domestic market trading showed an increase in total profits, up to 8.7 percent in the past year compared to 2016. Last year, Saudi banks achieved a net profit of SR44.9 billion (USD11.9 billion). Olivier Panis, Vice-President and Senior Credit Officer at Moodys, said: “Recovering oil prices, record budget expenditure and government efforts to protect households from the impact of economic reforms will be the main drivers of credit demand in 2018 and 2019.”