The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) continues to rise supported by gains in shares of cement manufacturers.
The main index of the Saudi Stock Exchange rose by 0.3%, with a leap in GulfGeneral Cooperative Insurance Company's share by 7.1% to gain most on theindex list. This is on the effect of the Board of Directors proposal ofincreasing the capital by $80mn (SAR300mn), according to Reuters.
Shares of 12 out of 14 cement companies listed on the market also roseafter Yamama Cement announced the distinctive financial results it hasreaped during the first quarter of the year 2019, boosted by its leadershipsupport of increasing the sales and prices, resulting in the share rise by%5.6.
This comes a day after the Saudi Stock Exchange rise, with the benchmarkindex increase by 0.1%, with the rise of BSF share by 1.6% to be closeto its highest level in four years after reaping strong results in the firstquarter of the year.
The rise in shares of the stock market coincided with the International Monetary Fund's confirmation that estimates a higher growth for Saudi Arabia's economic for the year 2019 than earlier forecasts of 1.8%, especially that the non-oil sector is expanding "faster than the broader economy."
"We expect the rate of non-oil growth to be 2.6% this year and 2.9% in 2020," said Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department, IMF, adding: "Based on the previous estimate of the IMF team, "Growth could be slightly higher than our expectations."
On the Saudi economy's growth by 2.2% last year, recovering from acontraction in 2017, Azour said: "A team from IMF is now in SaudiArabia, and revised economic figures are expected by next week."
Saudi Arabia's estimates the budget deficit at 4.6% of GDP in 2018, and expectsit to reach 4.2% this year. Saudi Finance Minister, Mohammad al-Jadaan saidlast week that Saudi Arabia had recorded a budget surplus of SAR27.8bn for thefirst quarter of 2019, underlining that the Saudi government's policies havecontributed to reducing the deficit and raising spending efficiency.
