Saudi Arabia's capital markets regulator approved rules for exchange-listed real estate funds on Sunday, as part of efforts to ramp up investment in the Kingdom's housing market. This comes as an attempt to help finance construction of around 1.5mn homes planned over the next seven or eight years. The real estate investment traded funds, publicly offered and traded on the Saudi stock exchange, will invest in residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural real estate, periodically distributing part of their income to holders of the fund. The rules, the draft of which was published by the Capital Market Authority in August, cover the management, operation and ownership of the funds, specifying for example that they would not be allowed to invest more than 25% of their assets outside Saudi Arabia. (Reuters)