Kuwait capital market authority discuss corporate governance law

Meetings of the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry and representatives from the private sector and the Capital Market Authority regarding the corporate governance law have been fruitful, said Chamber president Ali Al-Ghanim, in press statements on the sideline of the Chamber's General Assembly meeting here on Wednesday. He said there was some disagreement on a number of aspects of the corporate governance law especially between the Chamber and the Market Authority but he hoped that differences would soon be worked out. In his address to the General Assembly today, Al-Ghanim reviewed the Chamber's achievements over the past period, noting -- among a large number of statistics -- that Kuwait's GDP in 2013 reached KD 51.7 billion, causing the per capita income to hover around USD 48,000, the same level as it was in 2012. On external trade, he mentioned that Kuwait's imports in 2012 topped KD 7.6 billion whereas exports were set at KD 32.1 billion, out of which oil took the lion's share at KD 30.3 billion. He further said that the combined budgets of all local banks exceeded KD 51 billion in 2013 and that the number of Kuwaiti nationals working in the private sector jumped from 83,000 in 2012 to 86,000 in 2013, a slight jump no doubt but indicative of a spurning of jobs in the private sector which, he said, did not bode well for the future. To achieve economic reforms through the passing of successful legislations, he said two aspects had to be taken into account: a commitment to a crystal clear government reform program and an adherence to applying correct economic and technical standards to such a program. Augmenting that, he noted, there had to be a hand-in-glove approach to the cooperation of both the private and public sectors