RIYADH: A dramatic increase in foreign assets by Saudi Arabia investment funds has fueled a 33 percent year-on-year growth in the sector, according to the Kingdom’s Central Bank (SAMA).
Newly released figures show that at the end of the second quarter of 2021, investment funds had SR86.41 billion in foreign assets — up 117.49 percent compared to the same period last year.
Domestic assets also increased by 9.4 percent to SR155.23 billion.
The number of subscribers in investment funds also experienced a rise, growing from 350,000 in the second quarter of 2020 to 402,000 a year later.
Independent London-based economist Mohamed Ramady said: “This indicates a more confident future outlook amongst local investors in the state of the Saudi economy and a willingness to move from cash and current accounts to longer term investments.”
Investment funds are divided into open and closed funds, where the total assets of the open funds amounted to about SR212.61 billion, which constitutes 87.98 percent of the total assets of the funds, while the value of the assets of closed investment funds amounted to about SR29.03 billion.
Again, according to Ramady, this is to be expected as closed investment funds are specialized ones that take longer time to set up and have a closing date for participation, unlike the more flexible open-ended funds.
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