FEAS Yearbook FEAS Yearbook 2008 | Page 26

FEDERATION OF EURO-ASIAN STOCK EXCHANGES SEMI ANNUAL REPORT OCTOBER 2008 GEORGIAN STOCK EXCHANGE The year 2007 was a year of significant changes for the GSE that were mainly related to the essential amendments to securities market legislation in Georgia. George Loladze Chairman of the Supervisory Board The year 2007 was a year of significant changes for the Georgian Stock Exchange (GSE). These changes were mainly related to essential amendments to securities market legislation in Georgia enacted at the end of March 2007. Liberalized legislation effectively shifted much of security trading from the stock exchange and brokerage companies to the unregulated market. As for the stock exchange transactions–the main focus here was on several relatively attractive stocks, though it’s worth mentioning that that there are very few really liquid securities in Georgia. FUTURE OUTLOOK 1. Significant changes will take place at the Georgian capital market in 2008. In particular, the Georgian legislation, GSE Charter and Rules will be amended to ensure: • Demutualization of the GSE; • Direct participation of various financial institutions in GSE trading; • Remote GSE membership (for foreign institutions); 2. Based on the significant interest of a leading European stock exchange operator, as well as of the various financial investors, significant changes in GSE ownership structure is anticipated, entailing, among other, attraction of required investments for further development of the GSE. All the above-mentioned has significantly reduced GSE turnover. However, we look with optimism into the future, since investors’ interest towards Georgian securities market, in general, and GSE, in particular, is constantly increasing. We hope that through the policy of aggressive reduction of tariffs and fees, improving quality of the stock exchange and central depository services (implementation of remote trading, remote access to central depository, etc) we will attract new circles of investors and soon see the next boom in GSE volumes. 2008 is the year of Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Georgia and we hope that the post-election stability period will bring further investor confidence to the market. 3. Also, in 2008 the GSE plans to: • Make important changes in its trading system and trading rules so as to increase the efficiency of trading and increase the liquidity of the market: • Intensify the trading process. In particular, the trading sessions will be conducted on daily basis and/or time period of the trading sessions will be extended; • Further improve remote trading system for brokerage companies; • Establish electronic links between securities market participants (stock exchange, central depository, brokerage companies, banks, securities registrars) • Increase the efficiency of the government securities trading on the stock exchange; • Introduce partially guaranteed trading of securities; • Introduce price quotation both in local and foreign currencies. • Launch a new web-site for the GSE, which along with traditional statistics will provide corporate reports database for the companies who are admitted to the trading system. In addition, the creation and publication of a company database will allow companies to publish their annual, semi-annual and current reports which are required by law and thus improve disclosure standards and corporate transparency. CONTACT INFORMATION Contact Name Mrs. Ekaterine Katamadze E-mail [email protected] Website www.gse.ge PAGE 26