Saudi Arabia is opening its stock market to all foreign investors, in the kingdom's latest effort to boost flows and revive a market which has lagged emerging peers. Bloomberg's Christine Burke joined Horizons Middle East and Africa to explain.

Riyadh

Saudi Arabia has announced the full liberalization of its stock market, now permitting all foreign investors to participate without the previously required $500 million assets under management threshold. The Capital Market Authority indicated this is the first step toward potentially allowing foreigners to own a majority share in Saudi companies, with a review of the current 49% ownership cap planned for later in the year.

In addition to market reforms, Saudi Arabia has raised nearly $25 billion in financing within the first week of 2026 through bond issuances and syndicated loans, representing over 40% of its expected annual borrowing needs. The government is borrowing to address a budget deficit driven by high spending on economic diversification projects and lower oil prices.

Saudi Arabia opens stocks to all foreign investors

Christine quite simply how significant is this for the Saudi stock exchange. Well it's pretty significant in that this is really about the direction of travel. Jumana. So the Saudis are moving toward a full liberalization of their stock markets. What we've seen with these latest moves is essentially that the kingdom is saying hey now all types of investors can come and invest in this market. It used to be that there were layers upon layers of criteria that investment managers would need to meet to invest in the stock market including having assets under management of five hundred million dollars. Now that is no longer the case. And the reason this is so significant is because this capital market authority has said that this was the first step in a series of steps that need to be taken in order to allow foreigners to then own a majority share of a Saudi company. So currently foreign ownership limits stand at about 49 percent. The CMA has said that once this move was out of the way it would then undertake a review this year which could pave the way for foreigners to own more than 49 percent of a Saudi equity. So investors were really looking for this as the next step in that pathway. So really what we will see now is that investors will probably become a bit more focused on these reforms and that should be welcome for the Saudi stock market because we're seeing Saudi equities come on off of their worst year since 2015. So any kind of a boost would be a good thing at this point. Yeah most definitely. So we've had the easing of some of the requirements then potentially talk about lifting the foreign ownership cap which is something we spoke about towards the end of last year. Christine it's also very early days of 2026. But I want to talk to you about the borrowing that Saudi has undertaken just in the first couple of months first couple of days of this year. Already we're seeing quite a big bond issuance out of the kingdom. How does this set them up for the rest of the year. Well the Saudis typically love to come out with a bang at the start of the year when it comes to issuance. What we've seen in the last couple of days is eleven and a half billion dollars raised in dollar bonds. And then additionally there was a 13 billion dollar syndicated loan that was that was done as well in order to back infrastructure projects. So already seven days into the year we've seen that the Saudis have raised almost 25 billion dollars in financing. That is more than 40 percent of the overall expected financing needs for the year which stand at about 58 billion dollars. So we're once again seeing that Saudi is kind of front loading their issuance. The key thing to watch in the in the months ahead will really be whether they continue to tap international markets at a rapid pace or pull back a little bit as they have indicated they're looking to slow down and also that they will increasingly turn to private markets as they look to diversify their funding sources. Yeah but that is quite an astounding number of 40 percent of borrowing has already taken place in the first couple of days of the year. Why are they borrowing so much. Is it on back of some of the requirements for outlays at these mega projects or is it simply in response to lower oil prices and the pressure on the budget that that imposes. Well I think it's a combination of factors. The government has made no secret that it is borrowing and will continue to borrow to plug its budget deficit. Last year we saw quite a pickup in the budget deficit to five point three percent of GDP. That is expected to come down to three point three percent of GDP this year. But you're still looking at quite a wide gap. And really that gap is a combination of things which is the elevated spending on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman two trillion dollar economic diversification program. And also the fact that we just continue to see subdued oil prices that are far lower than what the government needs. So it's that combination of elevated spending lower oil prices that are coming together to create a fiscal gap that the government needs to fill. Yeah. Christine great to have you on. And thank you for walking us through all Saudi developments as it pertains to capital markets and borrowing. So far this year Christine Burke our Saudi bureau chief.

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