Stock prices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha edged higher Tuesday, as investors expect index provider MSCI 's decision scheduled for Wednesday on whether the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar will be upgraded to the status of " emerging markets."

The DFM and the ADX, the two stock markets in UAE, saw their indices gaining 0.40 percent and 0.32 percent, closing at 1,479.20 and 2,467.97 points, respectively. At both exchanges, no sector showed a clear direction, but in Dubai, market bellwether Emaar Properties gained 1.74 percent to reach a three-week high at 2.93 Dirham (about 0.80 U.S. dollars). In Abu Dhabi, the sheikhdom's largest lender National Bank of Abu Dhabi, known as NABD, added 0. 60 percent, closing at 8.40 Dirham.

Earlier in the day, NBAD said that rating agency Standard and Poor's (S&P) has raised assessment of its capital and earnings to "very strong," and the bank's stand-alone credit profile (SACP) to "a" from "a-". S&P also affirmed NBAD's long- and short-term credit ratings of "A+/A-1" which maintains that NBAD has one of the strongest combined ratings in the Middle East. The outlook for NBAD was stable, S&P stated, saying that "the stable outlook reflects our expectation that NBAD will remain a dominant player in the UAE, with no significant change in its ownership or business and financial profiles over the next two years."

In Doha, the Qatar Exchange 20 Index ended a week-long series of declines and advanced half a percentage point higher to close at 8,314 points straight. Gains in the banking sector drove the index rebound.

Investors in the UAE and Qatar wait for the verdict from Geneva- based index provider MSCI whether or not they qualify for " emerging market." MSCI announced last week that the decision will be made public on Wednesday.

An upgrade from the current status of "frontier market" would put the two Gulf states into the spot light of global fund managers who cover emerging markets like the BRIC countries or Egypt and South Africa. While the market capitalization of all 31 MSCI frontier markets (like Serbia, Botswana or Jordan) stands at 5 billion dollars, all the 21 MSCI emerging markets are collectively worth 4 trillion dollars.

"The classification of markets is a major step in the process of index construction where markets of comparable size, liquidity and other parameters like market accessibility are aggregated in indices that help investors to understand the investment opportunities available in these market groupings," said Dr. Nasser Saidi, Chief Economist of the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) Authority. He added that "A larger equity market will, generally, be associated with a larger number of investors and higher level of liquidity implying greater efficiency."

Market regulators in the UAE and Qatar have imposed higher transparency rules in recent months, but trading volumes in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha are still low compared to trading actions in Cairo, Shanghai or Johannesburg.