JPMorgan will remove Qatar and Kuwait’s government bonds from its influential Emerging Market bond index, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is on course to follow next year, due to rising income levels in the Middle East.

The US investment bank, whose EMBI indexes are the main global benchmark of EM debt, said it will remove Qatar and Kuwait bonds in equal notional amounts over a six-month period beginning on March 31 and concluding on August 29.

The two countries currently have respective weights of 3.2 percent and 0.6 percent in the most widely tracked EMBI Global Diversified index.

On the UAE’s future exclusion, the bank said the country’s cost of living ratio of 64.4 has exceeded its EM index threshold of 54.4 for two consecutive years.

If it does the same next year, its bonds, which have a 4.1 percent weight in the EMBI Global Diversified “will no longer be eligible for the EMBI series”.