Dubai Plans to Encourage Private and Family Businesses to Enter the Stock Market

Dubai plans to encourage private and family businesses to list on the stock market, as the market seeks to catch up with the surge in public offers in the region. The emirate merged its economic and tourism departments last Saturday, and one of the main tasks of the new entity is to urge private and family businesses to float their shares on the Dubai Financial Market, according to a statement. Last week, Dubai undertook a series of moves designed to attract listings and keep pace with regional competitors that attracted billions of dollars over the past year. This included reforming the board of the local stock exchange and planning to list the state-owned Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), one of 10 planned offerings in the coming months. Some well-known private and family-owned companies in Dubai include Majid Al Futtaim Holding, the operator of Carrefour stores in the Middle East, and Al Ghurair Sugar, which owns the world's largest sugar refining company, Bloomberg reported.