Saudi shares rose slightly on Wednesday as other Arab stock markets closed lower in line with bourses in Europe and Asia, following two days of strong increases.

The Saudi stock market, the biggest Arab bourse, recovered its initial losses of eight percent to close up 0.5 percent on 6,863.15 points after. The Tadawul All-Shares Index (TASI), which had rebounded 17.5 percent in the past two days, also ended the week up 11.4 percent but was still down 37.8 percent on the year.

Since Monday, the Saudi market recovered more than US$55 billion dollars of capitalisation and now stands at close to US$360 billion dollars.

Other Gulf marketS ended lower.

According to AFP, the Kuwait Stock Exchange, the second largest in the Arab world, closed down 0.64 percent at 11,719.70 points, after opening about two percent lower.

The Dubai Financial Market, which rose more than 22 percent on Monday and Tuesday, extended early losses to close down 7.44 percent at 3,427.87. Leading real estate developer Emaar, the market leader, declined almost 10 percent, with the real estate sector down 9.85 percent.

The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, which also gained 15 percent over two days, also went down, dropping 2.13 percent to close at 3,525.82.

The Muscat Securities market shed 0.03 percent, while the Bahrain Stock Exchange was down one percent. The Doha Securities Market finished trading 3.3 percent lower at 8,098.95 points.

On Tuesday, the UAE made US$19 billion dollars available to local banks, bringing to US$32 billion dollars the total pledged since the beginning of the crisis.

© 2008 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)