UAE classified as GCC’s emerging market

Russell Investments has reaffirmed its belief that the UAE is more appropriately classified as an Emerging Market. The fund manager’s classification of the UAE as an Emerging Market remains different from the current Frontier Market designation given by MSCI and S&P.This represents the largest difference by weight between the comparable Russell and MSCI Frontier and Emerging Index offerings.Following the annual reconstitution of its global indices, Russell reaffirms the UAE’s classification as an Emerging Market. Russell examined the UAE relative to the rest of the countries represented in the Russell Emerging Markets (REM) Index and median indicators from the Russell Frontier Index (RFI).The Russell Indexes country classification methodology seeks to identify the relative risk of investing in a country by evaluating both macro-level and market-level factors. Specifically, for this research Russell utilises: two key macro level measures used by Russell Indexes - the EIU country risk score and the World Bank Income Category; Market accessibility and operational risk across factors - foreign ownership limits, participation requirements, liquidity, existence of delivery vs. payment and settlement period. From / Gulf today