GCC forex industry doubling annually, says Dubai’s Alpari ME DMCC
- CEO sees most growth from UAE, Qatar and KSA
- Over 4,000 traders now trade through Alpari in the region
Dubai, 26 June 2012: The online Forex and currency trading industry in the Middle East will continue its meteoric rise and grow at an exponential rate, doubling year on year said Iskandar Najjar, CEO of Alpari ME DMCC (Alpari), at a recent conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Alpari ME DMCC has witnessed burgeoning demand from traders across the GCC. The UAE, Qatar and KSA in particular are demonstrating a keen thirst for Forex trading opportunities, mirroring a larger trend across the world. Globally, the Forex industry has seen daily trading volumes increase from $3 trillion during 2007 to $5 trillion during 2012. Spots and futures trading have witnessed the most growth, increasing by 10% over the same time period. Alpari has catered to the trading needs of regional investors from the entire MENA region from their headquarters in Dubai since 2010.
The online trading company has identified trends that show investors in the GCC region favouring trading oil, gold, silver and major currencies. In addition to these, investors across the GCC have been trading a range of currencies and commodities.
Alpari has continued to expand its offering in the region, most recently with the launch of a trading desk that facilitates unique trading opportunities on the Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange (DGCX). The company now offers clients access to trade more than 50 currencies and 20 commodities.
Najjar made the statement at a recent Forex conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which saw strong interest from investors in the Kingdom, apparently keen to diversify their portfolios. At the conference, Najjar and traders from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar discussed the current trends and opportunities in the industry.
Iskandar Najjar, CEO of Alpari ME DMCC, said: “The Alpari group have more than 4,000 clients now in the Middle East, which is a significant number, especially in such a short time. However globally, we have more than 200,000 clients trading on our platform, so the scope for growth in the Middle East is significant indeed.
“The experience gained by regional investors in equity markets has created a regional appetite for trading and is one of the reasons for the increasing popularity of currency and commodity trading. An important characteristic that is attractive is the ability to exploit volatility and the ease with which investors can use both bullish and bearish markets, effectively trading both when the market is rising and when it is falling. This provides investors with many more trading opportunities and it is this that I think excites our users.
“One thing is clear; we have seen a new asset class emerge in the last few years, and Forex has established itself as a viable alternative to traditional investments, as investors diversify their portfolios.”
Alpari ME DMCC was recently awarded full broker membership by the DGCX, offering its clients a wider range of tradable assets including currency and commodity futures. In 2011 alone, the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange registered record growth of 110% year on year, of which currency contracts accounted for 88% of total contracts, valued at $185.13 billion. Precious metals accounted for the rest. Alpari ME DMCC is the first broker to offer MT5 on DGCX, allowing its client base to seamlessly communicate with commodity future exchanges.