Stock exchanges in the United Arab Emirates will start operating Monday-to-Friday following the Gulf country’s decision to switch its working week, a government official said on Wednesday.
The UAE is planning to switch its working week for government employees, breaking ranks with the rest of the Gulf region and accelerating a push to draw in international investment and business by aligning with global markets. Instead of the current Sunday-to-Thursday working week, it will adopt a 4 1/2-day working week, with Friday – a holy day in Islam – being a half day.
The exchanges “will operate Monday-Friday and Friday will be a full business day for the stock markets,” Abdulrahman Al Awar, director general of the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “The decision is made to invest in the competitiveness of the UAE economy and to enhance productivity,” Al Awar said.
The change in equity-market operating hours aligns the UAE with much of the rest of the world, but distances it from regional competitors such as Saudi Arabia, leaving traders and investors with the challenge of finding a balance between the two. The Saudi bourse, the largest in the Middle East, trades Sunday through Thursday.
The UAE’s Securities and Commodities Authority will issue further details explaining operating hours to stock markets in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Al Awar said. The banking and financial sector will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the UAE’s plans, he added.
Market operators in the UAE have initiated a series of reforms in recent months, including extended trading hours and incentives for companies to sell shares to the public.
Tuesday’s decision didn’t specify whether the private sector has to adopt the new working week, but with schools almost certain to do so, it’s likely to be only a matter of time before it follows, analysts say.
A recently passed UAE labour law, which allows flexible and part time work, means the private sector has the choice about how to structure the working week, Al Awar said. The law “enhances the flexibility for the private sector and the economy to allow them to decide the value added to their business”.
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