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.