Forex Industry in the Middle East Continues to Grow

Forex Industry in the Middle East Continues to Grow

Forex Industry in the Middle East Continues to Grow


The Forex trading sector in the Gulf Region will carry on in its meteoric rise. It’s expected to grow exponentially, doubling year on year as stated by Iskandar Najjar, CEO of Alpair ME DMCC (Alpari), at a recent Forex conference in Jeddah Saudi Arabia.
Alpari ME DMCC has seen an escalating demand from retail traders across the Middle East. The UAE, KSA and Qatar, most especially have demonstrated eagerness for currency trading opportunities, therefore emulating a larger trend not only in the Gulf region but across the world.
Around the world, the Forex industry has witnessed daily trading volumes shoot up from $3 trillion during 2007 to $5 trillion during 2012.
Among the various capital markets, the spots and futures have seen the best performance with an increase of over 10% over the same time period. Alpari has been one of the top brokers that catered to the trading needs of regional investors from the entire MENA region from their Dubai head office since 2010.
Alpari has recognized trends that show GCC based investors favoring oil trading, precious metals trading and currency trading. Moreover, investors across the GCC have been trading a wide range of commodities and currencies.
The brokerage company has also continued to spread out and add more to its product portfolio. It recently launched its trading desk that allows for unique trading opportunities on the Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange (DGCX). It also now offers client access to trade more than 50 currencies as well as 20 commodities.
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.”
The Alpari ME DMCC had received various rewards and just recently has been awarded the full broker membership by the DGCX, offering its clients a wider range of tradable instruments including currency as well as commodity futures. In 2011 alone, the DGCX registered a record growth of 110% year on year, of which Forex contracts make up approximately 88% of total records, valued at $185.13 bn. The rest is made up of precious metal contracts. Alpari is the first broker to offer MT5 on DGCX, therefore making it possible for retail traders to flawlessly correspond with commodity future exchanges. 

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