Morocco, Turkey and Syria bring up the rear. They have the most primitive capital markets in the region. The average score for the eight is 3.94, below Western Europe's 4.72 and East Asia's 4.46 but above Latin America's 3.75. The Middle East does poorly for a number of reasons. Corporate bond markets in the Middle East are almost nonexistent, sovereign-bond spreads are very wide, and only Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco have issued Eurobonds.
Equity markets are also underdeveloped.
Here's a summary of changes in each country. Israel's Tel Aviv Stock Exchange adopted a number of new measures in 1999 to enhance market efficiency. One step was to develop and install a fully electronic TACT-Derivatives system. In addition, the ministry of finance announced its support for allowing U.S.-listed Israeli shares to track on the Tel Aviv exchange as well. May. Bourse activity failed to improve even though a law was passed last year to unify the three types of bank shares.