Kuwaitis were traders long before oil first appeared and trading has remained in their blood. It is no surprise therefore that Kuwait became the first state in the Gulf to develop an appetite for trading financial instruments - securities trading began in 1952 - and was also the first state to have a dramatic financial crisis. The collapse of the Souk Al-Manakh (unofficial stock market) in 1982 led not only to massive losses at the time but also taught Kuwaitis about exchanges the hard way. In 1983, the official Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) was restructured and since then, despite the Iraqi invasion in 1990, it has become arguably the most sophisticated market in the region.
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