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Launching MT30 of 30 Largest Securities

Top index provider MSCI has teamed up with the Saudi Stock Exchange, above, to launch the tradeable MSCI Tadawul 30 Index. (Getty Images)
Top index provider MSCI has teamed up with the Saudi Stock Exchange, above, to launch the tradeable MSCI Tadawul 30 Index. (Getty Images)
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Launching MT30 of 30 Largest Securities

Top index provider MSCI has teamed up with the Saudi Stock Exchange, above, to launch the tradeable MSCI Tadawul 30 Index. (Getty Images)
Top index provider MSCI has teamed up with the Saudi Stock Exchange, above, to launch the tradeable MSCI Tadawul 30 Index. (Getty Images)

MSCI Inc., a leading provider of indexes and portfolio construction and risk management tools and services for global investors, and the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), the largest stock exchange in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region in terms of market capitalization and turnover, announced the launch of the MSCI Tadawul 30 Index (MT30), a tradeable index.

MT30 initially comprises the 30 largest securities listed on Saudi Arabian Equity Market, based on free float market capitalization and screened for liquidity and international investability.

The index will be re-balanced four times a year, and the number of securities may vary within a range of 25-35 securities to reflect changes in the underlying market. Individual securities are capped at a maximum 15 percent weighting in the Index.

The index will provide investors with a useful benchmark of the largest liquid companies in Saudi Arabia and serve as the basis for the development of an index futures contract listed on Tadawul and can be licensed for other index linked financial instruments, including mutual funds, derivatives, and exchange-traded products.

Plans for the tradeable index were announced by MSCI and Tadawul in September 2018. MSCI announced the classification of Saudi Arabia to an Emerging Market in its annual global market classification review in June 2018. Saudi Arabia will enter the MSCI Emerging Markets Index in two phases this year, with the first phase set to coincide with MSCI’s May 2019 Semi-Annual Index Review in June.

Robert Ansari, Head of the Middle East at MSCI, comments: “We have seen increasing demand by institutional investors for tradeable indexes that can serve as the basis for liquid instruments to access equity markets globally. The MSCI Tadawul 30 Index (MT30) has been designed with tradability, investability and capping criteria to be able to serve as the basis for index futures and other financial products including derivatives and exchange-traded products.”

Khalid Al Hussan, Chief Executive Officer of Tadawul, adds, “Today’s launch of the MSCI Tadawul 30 Index (MT30) is a significant step forward in facilitating the creation of a derivatives market for Saudi Arabia and advancement of the Vision 2030 Financial Sector Development Program.”

Hussan added that, “With additional derivatives launches in the pipeline, including the introduction of an associated exchange-traded index futures contract, we expect to make significant strides this year in further enhancing market efficiency and creating new opportunities for investors to diversify risk and broaden exposure to the Saudi market, which continues to be the largest and most liquid in the region.”

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UN: More than 1.3 Million Return to Homes in Sudan

Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
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UN: More than 1.3 Million Return to Homes in Sudan

Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)

More than 1.3 million people who fled the fighting in Sudan have headed home, the United Nations said Friday, pleading for greater international aid to help returnees rebuild shattered lives.

Over a million internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their homes in recent months, UN agencies said.

A further 320,000 refugees have crossed back into Sudan this year, mainly from neighboring Egypt and South Sudan.

While fighting has subsided in the "pockets of relative safety" that people are beginning to return to, the situation remains highly precarious, the UN said.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The fighting has killed tens of thousands.

The RSF lost control of the capital, Khartoum, in March and the regular army now controls Sudan's center, north and east.

In a joint statement, the UN's IOM migration agency, UNHCR refugee agency and UNDP development agency called for an urgent increase in financial support to pay for the recovery as people begin to return, with humanitarian operations "massively underfunded".

Sudan has 10 million IDPs, including 7.7 million forced from their homes by the current conflict, they said.

More than four million have sought refuge in neighboring countries.

- 'Living nightmare' -

Sudan is "the largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered", the IOM's regional director Othman Belbeisi, speaking from Port Sudan, told a media briefing in Geneva.

He said 71 percent of returns had been to Al-Jazira state, with eight percent to Khartoum.

Other returnees were mostly heading for Sennar state.

Both Al-Jazira and Sennar are located southeast of the capital.

"We expect 2.1 million to return to Khartoum by the end of this year but this will depend on many factors, especially the security situation and the ability to restore services," Belbeisi said.

With the RSF holding nearly all of the western Darfur region, Kordofan in the south has become the war's main battleground in recent weeks.

He said the "vicious, horrifying civil war continues to take lives with impunity", imploring the warring factions to put down their guns.

"The war has unleashed hell for millions and millions of ordinary people," he said.

"Sudan is a living nightmare. The violence needs to stop."

- 'Massive' UXO contamination -

After visiting Khartoum and the Egyptian border, Mamadou Dian Balde, the UNHCR's regional refugee coordinator for the Sudan crisis, said people were coming back to destroyed public infrastructure, making rebuilding their lives extremely challenging.

Those returning from Egypt were typically coming back "empty handed", he said, speaking from Nairobi.

Luca Renda, UNDP's resident representative in Sudan, warned of further cholera outbreaks in Khartoum if broken services were not restored.

"What we need is for the international community to support us," he said.

Renda said around 1,700 wells needed rehabilitating, while at least six Khartoum hospitals and at least 35 schools needed urgent repairs.

He also sounded the alarm on the "massive" amount of unexploded ordnance littering the city and the need for decontamination.

He said anti-personnel mines had also been found in at least five locations in Khartoum.

"It will take years to fully decontaminate the city," he said, speaking from Port Sudan.