Shares on the Dubai bourse closed above 5000 mark barrier on Sunday for the first time in almost 11 weeks, buoyed by shares in Emaar.

The Dubai benchmark stock index, DFMGI, surged 2.73% or 134.74 points to 5062.96pts.

“Emaar served as the main boost to the index, as the developer finally approved the listing of its unit Emaar Mall. We could see the index keeping rally alive in the long term on this stock,” said Nedal Khouly, head of Gulf Research in Nemma Investment.

Shares in Emaar climbed 8.78%, after the developer announced its intention to proceed with the sale of existing shares in Emaar Malls Group (EMG or the “Group”) via an initial public offering (the IPO or the “Offering”) on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM).

“The Offering will be made available to individual investors (30% of the Offering), as well as qualified institutional investors (70% of the Offering), with 10 per cent being targeted for preferential allocation to existing Emaar Properties shareholders as at 10 September 2014. Emaar Properties expects to sell at least 15 per cent of EMG as part of the Offering,” the company said in a press release.

Turnover hit AED 1.52 billion, through the trade of 431.29 million shares.