YEREVAN, JUNE 6, NOYAN TAPAM. By starting to form an efficient capital market in Armenia, OMX also aims to discuss with Azerbaijan and Georgia the problem of developing the securities markets of these countries. Henry Bergstrom, chief deputy chairman of the Swedish-Finnish joint venture OMX AB, stated this at the June 6 round table "The Development Prospects of Armenia's Capital Market" organized by the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA). "In this way a regional market can be created, which will allow to increase investors' interest in the Caucasus," he noted. A memorandum of intention was signed on April 27 by OMX AB, a company specialized in financial services and their provision technologies, the Armenian government and the CBA. In accordance with the document, OMX has to buy the Armenian Stock Exchange (ASE) and the Central Depository. "Although the Armenian capital market is a small one, its participants, the Armenian government and the CBA express a great willingness to carry out a revolution instead of an evolution in this sector," Henry Bergstrom said. In his opinion, Armenian financial mediators offer a limited number of services to investors via the capital market, due to which investors have little interest in the capital market. He said that OMX plans to start the development of Armenian capital market with developing the infrastructures and the payment and settlement system, thus facilitating the entrance of possible investors into the capital market and their operation there. "We need certain incentives so that the sides will be interested in listing their securities on the stock exchange. Taking the Armenian reality into account, one of such motivations can be granting certain tax privileges to the enterprises that intend to list their securities on the stock exchange," OMX chief deputy chairman underlined. He expressed his satisfaction with the discussions about developing Armenia's pension system, noting that the pension system is one of the driving forces for capital market's development in Baltic states and Poland. In his words, OMX plans to gradually introduce EU principles of the capital market's operation, especially with respect to operations with interrelated persons and honest mode of action. He said that it is envisaged to set up a group of advisors on the Armenian capital market. The group will be composed of representatives of CBA, as well as investing, securities issuing and international donor organizations. Representatives of Armenian banks and enterprises as well as international donor organizations participated in the round table. CHA chairman Tigran Sargsian said previously that it is expected that the annual circulation of Armenia's securities market will make 500 million dollars at the end of second year of OMX program's implementation, and 5 billion dollars - at the end of the fifth year. In his words, 35 Armenian companies, which are willing to ratify transparency of their accounting based on the conclusion of an audit company, have been studied and then listed on the ASE in accordance with OMX procedure. To recap, stock exchanges of Sweden, Finland, Copenhagen, Vilnius, Tallinn and Riga operate as part of OMX. OMX project on development of stock markets is being implemented in Macedonia. OMX intends to implement such projects in Ukraine and Bulgaria as well. It provides technological assistance to stock exchanges of more than 50 countries.

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