The Abu Dhabi Securities Market today became the first stock exchange in the Middle East to foster XBRL (eXtensible business reporting language) by recommending that all listed companies in the UAE use it to facilitate analysis, improve the quality of financial information that companies distribute to the market, and enhance transparency.
Speaking at the opening session of the ADSM XBRL seminar hosted at the UAE Central Bank in Abu Dhabi today, Rashed Al Baloushi, Acting Director General of ADSM, said:
“We are delighted that XBRL has agreed to award a provisional jurisdiction to the UAE and we are honoured that it is the first in the Middle East.
“XBRL will bring a huge number of cost, efficiency and accuracy benefits not just to the listed companies that use it, but also to investors, analysts and all those who have an interest in the UAE financial markets.
“XBRL complements ADSM’s programme to adopt international best practise standards of regulation and governance throughout the UAE markets. It will give investors better access to a company’s financial information, allowing them to make more informed decisions efficiently. It also strengthens transparency in the market – an issue which ADSM is always looking to develop.”
“Furthermore, analysts will be able to compare detailed data more efficiently and with increased accuracy. Under the current system it can be difficult to benchmark data efficiently.
“The cost savings of using this programme are huge. It is estimated that XBRL will reduce regulatory data and processing efforts by a third.
“Once it is fully operational, users can switch easily between English and Arabic.
“ADSM, XBRL International and the XBRL UAE steering committee, will be working closely with companies looking to benefit from listing on our exchange to encourage implementation of this system.”
XBRL enables computer-readable tags to be applied to individual items of financial data in business reports. This transforms them from simple blocks of text into information which can be understood and processed automatically by computer software.
The UAE is the first country in the Middle East to be awarded an XBRL provisional jurisdiction and ADSM is the first exchange. to encourage companies to use it and provide the necessary support. In order to inform companies about XBRL, ADSM invited all UAE listed companies as well as representatives from other exchanges in the region to the seminar.
Since its inception in 2000, ADSM has grown into the largest exchange in the UAE by market capitalisation and the second largest exchange in the GCC region. Turnover has grown 200 times to more than US $28 billion, while trades have grown 100 times to more than 565,000 in 2005. Market capitalisation has multiplied by 20 to $130 billion (as at the end of 2005).
