Saudi Arabia: The next big emerging market?

The oil giant is set to open its stock market to direct foreign investment for the first time, giving outsiders access to the biggest bourse in the region.

The Saudi market -- worth an estimated $530 billion -- is more than double the size of the Tel Aviv stock exchange in Israel.

Full market opening is still some way off but investors are already salivating at the prospect after the Saudi government gave regulators the green light.

"This is a deeply liquid market with lots of sectors to play around with," said Saleem Khokhar, head of equities at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi's asset management group. "It trades $2-3 billion a day, so you can expect a lot of volume coming through from overseas."

Saudi Arabia's Capital Market Authority will begin opening up the market in the first half of 2015.

Direct investment is currently limited to citizens of Saudi Arabia and five neighboring Gulf states.