The United Arab Emirates' Börse Dubai will delay its planned launch of exchange-traded funds until next year, in recognition of the poor market conditions.

The UAE is among a host of small, oil-rich nations seeking to turn themselves into global, and diversified, financial marketplaces. These nations and their exchanges have been partnering with U.S. and European exchange leaders at a rapid pace and cementing plans to move into all the listed-product areas, including ETFs, which the global exchange have pioneered. Abu Dhabi, Oman and Saudi Arabia are also looking at ETFs. Egypt plans to introduce ETFs next year, as well (see story here.)

The pullback from a planned earlier launch of ETFs by the Börse Dubai is no surprise given the general pullback by investors, and will not likely slow down the long-term growth prospects for the marketplace.

While traditional stock funds have suffered to a much greater extent than ETFs in the current market, from exchanges like the Börse Dubai to ETF providers, it is a time for cautious introductions of new initiatives. PIMCO, which has high-profile plans to enter the ETF market in a major way, has also said it will probably introduce its highly anticipated ETFs later, rather than sooner.

While the Middle East is behind the U.S., Europe and Asia, and Latin America, in terms of ETFs currently, ETF executives think the Middle East and its concentrated wealth centers will be an important long-term market.

Turkey, with five ETFs across two asset managers, is the closest thing to a Middle Eastern ETF market, according to the most recent Barclays Global Investors survey of ETFs worldwide.

The Dubai Börse is now also in a strategic relationship with NASDAQ OMX, including an ownership stake, increasing its ability to compete for securities listings.

Dubai was also slated to introduce derivatives early next year, and will now launch both derivatives and ETF at the same time.