Banking and property recovery helps Dubai bourse to get back into black

Dubai Financial Market Company, the only listed bourse in the region, returned to profit amid renewed buying interest in Dubai stocks.

The stock market has benefited from the "thriving economic climate" in the Emirates and a recovery of the country's banking and property sectors, said Abdul Jalil Yousuf Darwish, the chairman of the company listed as DFM.

Net income for last year reached Dh35.2 million (US$9.58m) as traded value reached Dh48.7 billion last year. The bourse reported a loss of Dh6.9m in 2011.

The Dubai Financial Market General Index rose 20 per cent last year, compared with a 16 per cent drop the year before after the Arab Spring uprisings toppled leaders in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and Libya and unrest hit parts of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The index is up 15.9 per cent this year.

Revenues, which rose to Dh191m, were boosted after the exchange signed 27 contracts for market dissemination data to media as well as local and regional and international data providers.

The bourse also secured cash dividends worth Dh1.35bn from eight listed companies in its investment portfolio, a 21 per cent increase from a year earlier amid higher corporate earnings.

DFM benefited from bigger commissions as a result of an increase of share trading after it granted margin trading licences to three companies, it said.