The Saudi Arabia stock market rose on Sunday, helped by gains in National Petrochemical Company and Saudi Industrial Investment Group (SIIG) after the duo said they were in merger talks, while other Gulf markets were subdued in early trade.

The kingdom's benchmark index rose 0.3%, with SIIG jumping 6.5% while National Petrochemical surged by 8.7%.

Dubai's main index lost 0.7%, driven down by a 1.8% fall in Emirates NBD Bank and a 0.9% drop for Dubai Islamic Bank.

The Abu Dhabi index eased 0.1% as telecoms company Etisalat dropped 1.4%.

In Qatar, the index added 0.2%, with United Development Company advancing 7.1% and Qatar Fuel up 1.9%.

(Reporting by Ateeq Shariff in Bengaluru Editing by David Goodman) ((AteeqUr.Shariff@thomsonreuters.com; +918061822788;))