‘Furthermore, we have not witnessed in the recent years big IPOs. We need big IPOs’ DUBAI: There should be a more vibrant trading activity among equity markets in the Gulf region to improve their liquidity levels, the director-general of the Muscat Securities Market said in a report by Zawya. The Arab stock exchanges suffer from a lack of liquidity as shareholders tend to keep hold of their stocks rather than trading them, which leads to lower trading volumes, Ahmed Saleh Al-Marhoon said on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi-hosted annual conference of the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges, particularly noting Muscat’s own experience ‘as well as other markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the wider Arab region. “Furthermore, we have not witnessed in the recent years big IPOs. We need big IPOs,” he said. Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s biggest economy, has postponed plans for a flotation for up to 5 percent of state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco – a deal which could possibly create the most valuable listed company in the world. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in an earlier report, said the flotation of Saudi Aramco would proceed by 2021. “I believe late 2020, early 2021,” he told Bloomberg in an interview, referring to the timing of the IPO. “The investor will decide the price on the day. I believe it will be above $2 trillion. Because it will be huge.” The Muscat bourse head also noted that there have also not been any IPOs on primary markets in the UAE – the region’s second-biggest economy – this year. “Those big IPOs will make these funds and (wealthy) individuals sell portions of what they have in order to buy from the new company, which will make the market more liquid,” Marhoon said. “This problem almost prevails in all Arab countries.