Qatar Upgraded by Global Index Provider FTSE Russell to Secondary Emerging Markets

September 12, 2015

As part of its 2015 Country Classification review, on Friday evening FTSE announced Qatar was to be upgraded from Frontier to Secondary Emerging within the FTSE Global Equity Index Series. The upgrade will be implemented over two equal tranches in September 2016 and March 2017

Equity markets in FTSE’s Global Equity Index Series fall into one of four categories: Developed, Advanced Emerging, Secondary Emerging and Frontier. In September 2013 Qatar was added to a FTSE’s ‘Watch List’ for possible promotion and then in March this year the index provider cited Qatar as having now passed its key liquidity criteria for Secondary Emerging Market inclusion.

In Friday’s announcement they confirmed Qatar had met all the criteria required to attain Emerging Market status.

Mr. Rashid bin Ali Al-Mansoori, CEO of Qatar Stock Exchange, stated ‘We are delighted with FTSE’s decision to upgrade Qatar to emerging markets status. It is yet again an endorsement by international investment community of the progress the Qatari market has made in recent years.  We welcome the entire investment community that is benchmarked to the FTSE indices’