THE 3RD EDITION OF THE "FINANCING THROUGH THE STOCK MARKET" CONFERENCE / VALENTIN LAZEA, BNR:  "The switch of the BSE to the emerging market status must be accelerated"

The National Bank of Romania (BNR) is supporting the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) in the process which will help raise the rating of our capital market "from frontier market" to "emerging market", says Mr. Valentin Lazea, chief-economist of the NBR.

He mentions that the funds available on a global level for an emerging market are far bigger than those available to a frontier market. According to estimates in the field - Mr. Lazea said -, 1,400 billion dollars are available for the emerging markets all over the world, whereas that amount does not exceed 50 billion dollars for frontier markets.

Valentin Lazea says that, because of the frontier market status, the Bucharest Stock Exchange is attracting far less money compared to the exchanges of the neighboring countries. "The liquidity of our stock exchange is far lower than that of the markets in Hungary or Greece, for example, because of this positioning as a frontier market", Mr. Lazea said.

Furthermore, the NBR official said that one more reason to accelerate the move of the NBR from the frontier market to the emerging market status would be that this would attract more SMEs to the BSE. "The listing of SMEs is a gradual process: first the big companies appear. SMEs will not come to the stock market until the market is big enough, liquid enough", the NBR representative warns.

Valentin Lazea also says that some progress has been made towards eliminating the eight barriers which are preventing the development of the capital market, for example the fact that the ASF (the Financial Oversight Authority) has agreed to cut some commissions, and the requirement to hire a fiscal consultant for the opening of an account has been eliminated. "There are other measures left to take, including the amendment of the Fiscal Code ", said Valentin Lazea.